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Comment by pseudolus | Hacker News Reader

Somebody should Airbnb this. Who wouldn't want the opportunity to cross the United States in their own personal rail car? No airports to deal with, no impersonal hotels. Sounds like a retirement dream.

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I took my dad on the Via Candian (1) from Toronto to Vancuver. We had an absolutely amazing exeperience. You see Canada in a very unique way, meet interesting people, and time does this interesting thing when you're on a train for 4 nights. Highly recommend it (If you get your own sleeper car!).

(1)https://www.viarail.ca/en/explore-our-destinations/trains/ro...

I did the whole country on that (although didn't do a sleeper car). Tips: If you're gonna get off and on, especially in Western Canada, know when the next train leaves. Sometimes it's 4 days in between. Also don't get off the train in Thunder Bay, no matter what they say, you don't have time to get to the Subway sandwich shop and back.

Toronto - Vancouver train. One way ticket:

Sleeper cabin for two - $3,450

Prestige cabin for two - $11,670

Toronto - Vancouver flight. $650 - Business class ticket.

You take a flight from Toronto to Vancouver to get to Vancouver.

You ride the Canadian sleeper from Toronto to Vancouver to ride the Canadian sleeper.

Not super comparable, imho.

Exactly. Comparing to a flight is to completely miss the point.

I see a sleeper cabin for two listed for $1558 (discounted from $2428 reg price) and there are often even steeper discounts available. [0]

You can get an "upper berth" sleeping ticket with meals for $968.50. Considering that's a 4-day sightseeing trip compared to a 4-5hr flight I don't think a $300 premium is outrageous, do you?

In fact, the cheapest business class ticket one-way I can find is $871. That makes the difference less than $100!

(In fact I am amazed that the prices are in fact comparable between a 4-day train trip and a 5-hr flight. Definitely something I didn't expect.)

[0] https://www.viarail.ca/en/deals/toronto-vancouver#select-des...

Those prices are per person.

So to actually use both berths in your sleeper cabin for 2 is $3,522.22 including tax, etc.

If you only book as one passenger the rate goes down but not by half. It's still $2,641.94. Rates are based on full occupancy.

I would not recommend the upper berths. You have just a bed behind a curtain. For the trip with my dad I got us each a single sleeper cabin. I think it was $1,500 each, and having your own little room to go to was great to have.

The trip was for my dads 70th birthday, and a long promised gift (He took me to Italy, Croatia and Bosnia where we almost got killed and the deal was I’d take him on a trip) so it was worth spending a little extra for the comfort.

How much are you willing to pay? There are (a very few) luxury train trips in Europe. Maybe $5-10K NY-SF or NY-SEA would cover it in the US? It's totally doable if there were a market; basically upscale the long-haul Amtrak routes with higher-end accommodations and food. The evidence suggests there's not the demand.

I think it's partially a chicken-or-the-egg problem. Honestly, I didn't even know these private rail cars existed until this article. I feel like if the Kardashians took a cross-country tour in one of these things and Instagrammed it that it would be all the rage.

You need a critical mass of volume though. You can get pretty nice suites on Amtrak today on the long-haul routes. It's admittedly not luxury in the sense of really first-class food and everyone dressing up but probably a nice slow travel experience so long as you don't care too much about arriving as scheduled. I'm not convinced there's that big a market for don't care about cost + don't care about time.

I've actually contacted for a quote before. I've thought about doing it for a birthday ;)

I was quoted 7500 per day minimum. Plus staff, food, etc.

My trip would be Den -> San Fran the problem is the most realistic response from a charter company I got was based in Chicago! So you have to think about days to get to your location, plus the return. Plus your trip.

I've also really wanted to do a Belmond long trip but they book sooo far in advance and I usually dont book trips until a month or two out. Maybe I'll treat myself for a 2021 ticket for my 30th birthday lol

Sleeping cars, while still existing, are pretty much a dying species in Europe.

Significantly higher speeds made them pretty much obsolete.

While, for example, it used to take 7+ hours to get from Zurich to Paris (and artificially longer, if it was a night train) the trip now takes 4 hours by TGV.

They'd have to overcome the 125k/month cost it seems, but it would definitely be cool if they managed it.

*$125k/year

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