@fritzoids@mas.to@jgrg@mstdn.science I actually looked into this. There’s a small community of people with private railcars. Most are leased out for excursions, but some are owned for personal use.
It’s not THAT expensive to buy one - comparable to the cost of an RV. But the cost of moving it is fairly high, it requires a lot of planning, and you need a place to store it connected to the national rail system (which means either leasing space in a rail yard or owning a railroad siding).
@fritzoids@jgrg Ringling Brothers circus used to operate two full length trains, which transported both all the circus sets (and animals) and housed most of the staff and performers. They had relationships with all the major freight railroads to move and store the train to all their venues. When they shut down a few years ago, I looked into buying one of the dorm cars. Less expensive than I expected, but there was no way you could get the freight railroads to move and store a single car.
@fritzoids@mas.to@jgrg@mstdn.science One of the problems is that unlike a car, a plane, or a boat, you can’t move your own train on someone else’s tracks yourself. They have to haul it for you, with crews familiar with and qualified on the specific sections of track you’re moving on. And passenger cars and freight cars don’t mix, which means basically that you have to hire a dedicated locomotive and crew just to move your car. If they’re even willing to do it.
@fritzoids@mas.to@jgrg@mstdn.science All this means (in the US) that you’re in practice limited to going where Amtrak goes, hooked up to their scheduled trains, and you probably can’t occupy the car when it reaches its destination in some rail yard somewhere.
I’ve seen YT videos with some of these old-timey private cars and specialty cars that people bought up when they got decommissioned. And it looks like so much fun. I understand that there are logistical difficulties, but a private jet also has those.
@fritzoids@jgrg There’s a *huge* infrastructure for handling private airplanes. You can fly to almost any general aviation airport, store your place, get fuel and service, rent a car, whatever you need.
For a railcar, every single time you want to move it, you’d have to deal with people who have never heard of anything like this before. Amtrak has a tariffed rate for moving private cars, but most of the freight railroads (most of the US) really don’t want the business.
Not that I have the money, but I will now have to research the possibilities in Europe. (If I am correctly informed, the US railway is not great to use anyway because freight trains take precedence over passenger trains and other such weirdness.)
@mattblaze@federate.social@fritzoids@mas.to@jgrg@mstdn.science Back when I owned an RV, I always thought it would be cool if the RV had a second set of train wheels that could be lowered on demand, like the rail service trucks do. Best of both worlds, do the long haul travel by getting towed on rail lines, then drive away on normal roads for local stuff and camping.
@fritzoids@mas.to @jgrg@mstdn.science I actually looked into this. There’s a small community of people with private railcars. Most are leased out for excursions, but some are owned for personal use.
It’s not THAT expensive to buy one - comparable to the cost of an RV. But the cost of moving it is fairly high, it requires a lot of planning, and you need a place to store it connected to the national rail system (which means either leasing space in a rail yard or owning a railroad siding).
Fun idea, but impractical.
@fritzoids @jgrg Ringling Brothers circus used to operate two full length trains, which transported both all the circus sets (and animals) and housed most of the staff and performers. They had relationships with all the major freight railroads to move and store the train to all their venues. When they shut down a few years ago, I looked into buying one of the dorm cars. Less expensive than I expected, but there was no way you could get the freight railroads to move and store a single car.
@fritzoids@mas.to @jgrg@mstdn.science One of the problems is that unlike a car, a plane, or a boat, you can’t move your own train on someone else’s tracks yourself. They have to haul it for you, with crews familiar with and qualified on the specific sections of track you’re moving on. And passenger cars and freight cars don’t mix, which means basically that you have to hire a dedicated locomotive and crew just to move your car. If they’re even willing to do it.
@fritzoids@mas.to @jgrg@mstdn.science All this means (in the US) that you’re in practice limited to going where Amtrak goes, hooked up to their scheduled trains, and you probably can’t occupy the car when it reaches its destination in some rail yard somewhere.
@mattblaze@federate.social @jgrg@mstdn.science
I’ve seen YT videos with some of these old-timey private cars and specialty cars that people bought up when they got decommissioned. And it looks like so much fun. I understand that there are logistical difficulties, but a private jet also has those.
@fritzoids @jgrg There’s a *huge* infrastructure for handling private airplanes. You can fly to almost any general aviation airport, store your place, get fuel and service, rent a car, whatever you need.
For a railcar, every single time you want to move it, you’d have to deal with people who have never heard of anything like this before. Amtrak has a tariffed rate for moving private cars, but most of the freight railroads (most of the US) really don’t want the business.
@mattblaze@federate.social @jgrg@mstdn.science
Not that I have the money, but I will now have to research the possibilities in Europe. (If I am correctly informed, the US railway is not great to use anyway because freight trains take precedence over passenger trains and other such weirdness.)
@mattblaze@federate.social @fritzoids@mas.to @jgrg@mstdn.science Back when I owned an RV, I always thought it would be cool if the RV had a second set of train wheels that could be lowered on demand, like the rail service trucks do. Best of both worlds, do the long haul travel by getting towed on rail lines, then drive away on normal roads for local stuff and camping.