-
How much does an Amtrak certified private railcar cost? I’m sure that there is a wide range depending on the condition and luxury of the car, but ballpark?
-
Where do private railcar owners store their cars? Do they buy a track somewhere or is it just stored at some yard? How much does storage cost?
-
How much does Amtrak charge to add a private railcar to the back of the train? Does the private car have to go from train original to final destination or could it be added and then decoupled somewhere in between?
-
So let’s say you want to go somewhere Amtrak doesn’t go with your private railcar, can they put it on the back of a freight? If so, how much would that cost?
-
Finally let’s assume you also own a locomotive in good working order (a diesel).
A) Would freight railroads allow you to run your train as a special on their tracks? (Obviously, you’d have to pay the freight railroads for track use)
B) If so, how much would the freight railroads charge to run a private train?
Check out the American Association of Private RailcarOwners site, www.aaprco.com for some info. If you join, as an Associate Member ($90.00 / year), you can delve into all of the technical stuff and get a listing for the members, and their cars. Associate status also allows you to discover listings of up-coming trips and priority for boarding/space. Don’t join until the start of the New Year. Membership runs by the calendar year!
To answer your questions, in order: 1.) Megabucks! No ‘ballpark’. 2.) Most store the cars in covered areas, like an old warehouse. Some (eg. in Milwaukee) are stored in an Amtrak train shed. Getting the PV out-of-the-weather is absolutely crucial! 3.) Amtrak has a special group that handles PV moves. It gets very involved, to say the least. You can be dropped from an Amtrak train at many places and have another carrier pick you up (eg. going to the Grand Canyon or spending a week in Whitefish, MT skiing). Make sure you have “hotel power” available, wherever you stop. 4.) You can go anywhere you want. Remember, 480v. “Amtrak-compatible power” is the deciding factor, if you want to travel on their trains, plus their mechanical requirements, which can get ‘picky’ at times. There are non-compatible railcars for sale on the AAPRCO site, but your travel choices are limited. If you live on a short line, and just want to go up-and-down it, on occasion, that might work. The non-Amtrak compatible cars are much cheaper, but most can be converted. 5a.) Depends on the railroad. Benett Levin runs his “PRR” E-8s all over the place. 5b.) Again, this depends on the railroad. Ask around. I hope this helps. More info available if you e-mail me at wdh@mcn.net .
Bill Hays
I was once curious myself about owning a private railcar until I spoke to an owner odf a private car. His definition was it runs on tracks and consumes endless supply of dollars.
Having once owned a large boat it was descibed as a hole in the water that consumed endless supply of money. Needless to say I sold boat and my sanity returned, although some still question the latter.
Al - in - Stockton
The answer to how much a car costs depends on a variety of factors – what it is, what condition it is in, if it is currently Amtrak certified, and many more. They can range from $30,000 to the $1.3 million one was recently listed for. Here is a link to a broker which will give you an idea of the variety and the costs to purchase:
Frankly, if you can afford to do this, you might also consider sending each and every forum member a nice holiday gift.
I’ll second the holiday gift.[swg] I agree that a railcar would be horribly expensive to maintain. I could justify the expense. I would have to use it constantly in order to enjoy it.
Frankly, I believe this vacation idea to be quite cost prohibited. Although I’ve heard it’s a great experience. However, I think that Amtrak is not optimizing this opportunity for revenue. How can adding one extra car to a train be that difficult? It could really produce some good business if they lowered their per mile prices (I think it’s around $2/mile, correct me if I’m wrong) and other fees such as switching, servicing, and storage.
The reality of Private rail car operations falls into the category of…
If you have to ask how much it costs…you can’t afford it.
I have had an Amtrak certified private car for about 25 years, so have some experience in this. The car is Cimarron River, 1948 Pullman sleeper built for Frisco RR. We have operated the car for over 400,000 miles. So, my comments on your questions:
-
Cost–minimum I have seen for an operating Amtrak certified car is about $150,000. This would be a streamlined post war sleeping car. Amtrak sold off lots of their 10-6 HEP cars, so they are pretty easy to find. Heavyweight open platform business cars, domes, etc. are going to be more, but that gives you a starting point. After you get the thing, the question is, how are you going to maintain it? Are you handy with tools, plumbing, electrical work? Or will you have to hire someone to do anything mechanical? The maintenance is endless-these cars are at least 50-60 years old. For us, I am a mechanical engineer and love to tinker. So minor maintence I do. Heavy work, like the truck rebuild or “brake job” (every 4 years) must be done at a shop. Although, we did have a very friendly siding for a while (1993-94) and did truck disassembly ourselves and jsut sent the parts to a shop for re-working. Aside from the original purchase price, you can figure minimum maintenance and insurance and annual inspections will be $10-15,000 per year, assuming no major problems. Major problems are new wheels, new generators, etc. Those are additional things that wear out, break.
-
Parking. This is a big issue. Luckily, here in St Louis there is a private car “park”. Outside storage, no electricity is $300 per month. If you want to keep your car on power, it’s more. Over the years, we have frequently parked our car on shortlines. Some are quite friendly to the idea. We’ve paid as little as $100 per month for storage, but there was no security. That was a problem in urba
We had a cool train that ran out of St. Louis for a few years-Rail Cruise America. It was a privately owned RR that had it’s own observation car at the rear end. I took a few day trips with them and it was great fun to stand on the rear and wave to people as we passed, pretending that we were on our own private car. It was sold a few years ago to KCS and they use it to run trips. TRAINS did a feature article about it a few months ago. I’m glad someone took it over, but I miss it. It parked at our old Union Station which was renovated into a hotel and shopping mall.
I just read this post and I’ve seen the Cimarron River in St. Louis railyards. It caught my eye when I was on one of Rail Cruise America’s trips and I took a pic of it showing the Frisco name. But I had no idea who it belonged to. It’s always good to see the Frisco name anywhere. We’d watch for Frisco freight cars when my parents & I traveled, it was interesting to see how they far they were from home.
I saw a Frisco hopper a few years ago when I was waiting for our light rail Metrolink which runs parallel to UP and BNSF tracks in some areas of town. It had to be old but it was still rolling. I’d always see a lot of coal cars being hauled by UP zipping past our Metrolink platform and there was Frisco mixed in with them.
Your first hurdle is storage.Secure storage.Very secure storage.Did I mention secure storage?As a former owner of a dome car I can tell you of the nightmare stories about trying to secure my baby on my own, ie; abandoned spur, ripped up line etc…I went so far as to lay rail on an old line where the tracks had been ripped up, and had a crane come out and hoist my car across the road to my own siding.This siding was less than mile from my residence and it was still vandalized! The money I spent was well,more than I have now.Your car has to be inside or at the very least covered.The windows needed replaceing on my dome and even after boarding them up and tarping the rain still found its way in.Major headaches, and this before you even get to enjoy being pulled around the country!My dad used to say in reference to our railcar habit that we had champaine tastes on a beer budget ( I prefer “nightrain” budget).Unfortunately, as with everything else,due to the economy owning and operating a private car is almost impossible right now until things improve, but if I had it to do all over again I absolutely would! Good Luck
A suggestion might be for those interested in this experience; owning, riding, enjoying. Check out the areas of the AAPRCO website devoted to the chartering/traveling in, or owning Private Varnish:
And if you would want to try out a trip by Private Varnish, here’s another site that also offers charter services:
Back to question #5: if you have the combination to Scrooge McDuck’s money bin, I would suggest you buy a NEW Amtrak-compatible locomotive. All Amtrak all-PV trains run with an Amtrak loco, especially those with a steam loco in the lead, for protection power and HEP capabilities. If you owned a suitable loco, you could go ‘anywhere’ with it, even into GCT or Penn Sta., if it was properly (DM) equipped. You could paint it any scheme you liked, even changing it, often, with the plastic film overlays now used. It would be operated by Amtrak personnel on their charters, of course. I’m sure Amtrak would be happy for you to provide the power.
Hays
Then there are sailboats. I have a cousin who has gone across the Atlantic twice. She agrees that that taking a trip on one is like taking a cold shower while tearing up 4100 bills. She’s in Aruba thinking about the Pacific. She is the family nut. Also the family genius, which makes it all possible.
Jack
Anyone want to go “halvsies”, or shares, on a new GE P42DMM*? (*: “Dual Mode”. The second “M” is for Modified. I think GE would be happy to put a replica Alco PA, or FA, nose on one). That would be cool! My BNSF stock (NYSE: BNI) has gone up so much I don’t know what to do with all the money! Base color? NYC “Lightning Stripes”, of course, in the passenger two-tone grey. That would be negotiable, depending upon your contribution. PRR red? No! PRR “Brunswick Green”? Maybe…
Hays
BNSF, for one, runs a lot of “Silver ‘Z’ trains” A “Z” train is a premium-service domestic trailer inter-modal. They tack on a bunch of business cars and ‘away they go’. The business trains have their own HEP car and the engineers are VERY careful, especially of slack-action. Only disasters slow down a “Silver Z”. No reason, methinks, a PV couldn’t be included in the lash-up. Of course, the “tail car” position would be used by the railway, for inspecting/viewing the ROW, unless the business cars were deadheading. I have seen “Silver Zs” go by with only one attendant on board (lucky guy!! What a job!). Might be worth a try, but scheduling (in advance) would be a bear.
Hays
Any such request would probably be turned down by the carrier without a second thought. There are probably no published tariffs to govern such a move. It would probably be in violation of the Rail Passenger Service Act as amended since BNSF, through its predecessors, surrendered its common carrier passenger obligations when it joined Amtrak.
Maybe, but I don’t believe so. For one, it depends on how much SF, and or BN tned over to Amtrak. SOme places were allowed to keep commuter, and stuff that Amtrak didn’t want. Though the majority did dump everything, SF was still spinning a marginal profit on the Chiefs.
Nothign is stopping JB HUNT or Scheinder from wanting to see how their equipment is being handled. Hence the purpose of the Silver Zs. Likewise, what is preventing them from being able to change trains from UP or KCS to CSX or whomever? UP isn’t gonna send their business car all the way to Ohio, but the customer wants to see it. (Sales Ploy) So, use someone else’s.
The host road would charge a fair amount to use their HEP, or expect the PV to supply it’s own. (Some can, not common as far as I know) There may be posterity reasns for not wanting it, say a PRR car screaming aside the BNSF Forest/cream. Kinda a sore thumb
I run charter passenger train trips quite often and have a few comments on car moves.
First, if you want to get into the business, many current owners will happily sell a share of their car which gives you only part of the pain while still getting to use the car some. You can also rent a car as you need. However, understand that it is somewhat like buying vacation space, you might not get to use it when you want and sudden costs can also arise.
Next, all of the Class I railroads have policies that while they will move your private car, it is moved as a freight move and no one can ride in the car, including mechanical forces. Most of the rates I have been quoted recently are about $5+ per miles with generally a minimum of $2000 to $5000 per move, no matter the distance. The cars you see on some BNSF trains either belong to BNSF (used for marketing and inspections) or belong to a connecting railroad and the run through route is being inspected or marketed. JB Hunt did ride a few trains in the early days to see the routes and services before moving a lot of the highway traffic to rail.
Amtrak can operate charter trips over most railroads, but they aren’t cheap. For a decent sized train, you are looking at $35,000 to $50,000 a day if they provide the locomotives (which Amtrak generally requires) and some of the equipment. Amtrak is generally pretty slow about getting the contract to you also. It is not uncommon to get the final paperwork the day of the trip or just a few days earlier. They are, however, much better on getting your car added to a regular Amtrak train since that is a much more common event. However, in some cases, you also have to pay for an additional locomotive as some Amtrak trains are already maximized as far as locomotive pulling power is concerned.
Folks like Bennett Levin, Friends of 261, and a few others, have all of their equipment Amtraked and have worked with Amtrak a great deal to allow them to op
One of the things I was told by a 4449 guy, was that if they could get it running, they would be allowed to use the F40PHI they picked up instead of a P42. A different, but also matching spin to what you said. I wonder if that wouldn’t cost more though, fir direct maintnence, but it sure looks better in paint. I do wonder if that would have saved them though trying to get the train out of Chicago the next morning on the way to Owosso, having their own engine and not dependednt on Amtrak digging out a fresh P42, but I don’t recall all the details that put them 5 hours behind.
One of the things I’ve pondered on in my HO universe, is