Make sure you get one that matches American gauge and isn't one of the the meter gauge mountain trains
Japanese Railways wanted to build a train that can run at full speed (~300 km/h) on the standard gauge (1435 mm) regular Shinkansen lines but also use the narrow gauge (1067 mm) existing lines at slower speed. Those older lines would not have to be rebuilt for the Shinkansen standard & there would still be significant time savings:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gauge_Change_Train
This failed to produce a viable train, resulting in falling back to track rebuilds or using relay trains that connect directly from Shinkansen to the local rail line on the same platform.
I wonder if it was not just the change in gauge, but tolerances as well.
I got to see "Dr. Yellow" running on the shinkansen line and it checks everything out.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_Yellow
I wonder if the slower-speed lines have looser tolerances.
Then maybe running the gauge-change train on the slower lines might kill the train's tolerances before it moves back to the super smooth high-speed lines.
There's a station on the main line that loads full sized cars with tanks on them onto little bougies that take them up into the mountains for training.
To be eligible to run as part of an Amtrak train any car must past all FRA rules/guidelines, which a Euro-spec car absolutely will not without hundreds of thousands of dollars of work.
It would be MUCH cheaper to start with a car already in the US and meeting those standards. Much, much cheaper. Still not cheap, but in the realm of the practical.
On the China/Mongolia border on the other hand they disassemble the train, lift the train cars up one by one (with passengers inside), switch out the boogies and then reassemble. 3 hour process, you can fully sleep through it and not notice.
(Although in some cases you are woken up for border formalities.)
Yeah although you can just stay in bed for this. I've been on the train. The Chinese officials just wake you up, stamp your passport, and off you go to sleep.
Then the Mongolian officials came on, asked me a couple questions to see whether I respected their country, why I was going there, grumbled something unintelligble, stamped my passport and moved on.
Much better than getting in line for 2 hours if you ask me (which is what happened at the Bulgaria/Turkey border and the Georgia/Armenia border when I crossed those)
These aren't American trains.