You can pay Amtrak to haul your train car around[0], so you’ve just got to figure out a way to get the car from Switzerland to the US, and then you can really get around in style.
You can pay Amtrak to haul your train car around[0], so you’ve just got to figure out a way to get the car from Switzerland to the US, and then you can really get around in style.
Make sure you get one that matches American gauge and isn't one of the the meter gauge mountain trains
gauge is likely easy to change. Not cheap, but Amtrak demands expensive inspections and refurbishment to run, so the cost of changing the gauge is likely fairly small compared to the other costs.
Off topic, but some trains can even change gauge while in motion: https://www.reddit.com/r/trains/comments/kq6eds/this_is_how_...
This is actually quite a significant technical achievement - for example, a similar project in Japan failed.
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.
Swiss trains can, but while stopped.
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.
Swiss train can do it in motion, the post above is about the MOB train that can go from Montreux (meter gauge) to Interlaken (standard gauge).
Not sure if it directly helps here, but multi gaage railway cars are a thing. Iirc on some European lines, the trains switch their gauge.
Yeah some overnight trains can adjust their gauge on the France/Spain border.
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.
If it’s taking 3 hours on a passenger train, a 5-10 minute transfer seems vastly more efficient.
Yes, but most people can't sleep through a train transfer
On a night train such as the Transsib that takes several days to get from A to B anyway, being able to sleep through it and not needing to lug your stuff around is usually considered more important.
(Although in some cases you are woken up for border formalities.)
It’s possible in The Netherlands to charter a private train. I have seen large companies do this for a company retreat. It’s not even that expensive. I remember it being €5000/hour which isn’t a bad way to move 300 employees to the other side of the country.
All European railway operators are legally required to offer this, by the way: it's an open market, so (provided there is physical space) they have to allow anyone to run their own train. Normally this means freight trains, but it also means companies like FlixTrain can attempt to compete with the large national train operators - and of course it allows for one-off charters.
The only downside is that preference is given to regularly scheduled services, and the remaining space is first-come-first-serve, so on the busier routes there's a decent chance you'll have to take a large detour instead, or sit in a siding waiting for a while.
Is there someone that does this frequently with a breakdown in costs and their experience? This sounds lit as a goal for an eccentric millionaire.
There are clubs[1][2] of owners, and they'll generally rent them out to people. We looked into doing it for my bachelor party. Unfortunately, the cost is akin to renting a yacht for the same amount of time (On the order of thousands per day, minimum), so we quickly shelved that plan for an AirBnB.
[1] https://www.aaprco.com/
[2] https://www.rpca.com/
I don't have personal experience, but I've heard it's not viable. The biggest issue is that Amtrak offers the service on a "best effort" basis, which means that if the train you want to hook up to is running late (which this frequently are due to conflicts with cargo traffic), they won't hook your car up, and you have to wait for the next train, which also might not be able to hook you up.
There are a few clubs that have cars that do this for a club outing. Members pay a small amount of dues, but the largest cost is labor - you are expected to help rebuild their cars. Most of the club money seems to come from renting the cars out.
The above is what I gather from reading their websites. However there is no club close enough to me for joining to be reasonable and so I didn't verify the above.
There is a fee schedule available: https://www.amtrak.com/content/dam/projects/dotcom/english/p...
If I ever get to be a millionaire, it’s certainly on my list!
Buy a house first - then make another 20 million, then maybe consider this haha
"Mark, do you have live quite so relentlessly in the real world?"
-- Jeremy, Peep Show
Someone should definitely forward this to Kim Jong Un, maybe they also make a custom armored version.