The thing I haven’t read in this thread: how do you get your personal trail car to the station, and how do you move it about on your destination?
It sounds cool but very inflexible.
You pay for someone (another rail company operating at that railyard) to move it for you into storage, where you pay the storage costs. If you need that railcar somewhere else, you pay someone to transport it somewhere else, same as how cargo rail would work.
It feels like the last time this service was used, everyone would have giant top hats, and their own personal railway spur to their houses.
This one of those hobbies that sounds so cool but so impractical to get into. Like it makes getting a boat sound like a cheap and easy hobby.
Probably not too impractical owing to the fact that you probably aren’t allowed to do jack shit yourself. It’s not like you can tow it from the depot to the station with your f150. Much easier than owning a boat :) presumably just as pricey though and with even less utility
Who wouldn’t want to take a private cartage? Id get one for baboo too.
Yeah iirc thats an old holdover from when that was how rich people got around
Well, shit. Now I want to be rich
Do it!
At the rate Amtrak derails or rail bridges go out? I think I’ll just fly Boeing.
You’re thinking of cargo rail. Amtrak owns the rails and the passenger service. They actually run way more than you probably think as they operate the northeast corridor as well as some of the other more serviced lines like the cascade corridor.
Amtrak doesn’t actually own most of the rails, and pays the rail owners like CSX for access to those routes.
How often do you think they derail, or bridges go out?
I think over the last decade, I’ve heard of one incident.
This got me wondering. What if you build out a luxury trailer home in a shipping container. Could you just pay to have the thing shipped around while you’re living in it? It seems like it’s got to be efficient since there’s so much infrastructure and logistics for moving containers around.
No joke, at least back in the 80s some wall-streeters did thIs from my home town in Nj to NYC every day. Complete with full bar.
Am I the only person without a personal train car? Am I surrounded by people in top hats and just don’t know?
I started a conversation the other day with some friends about if I ever ran for President and needed to travel the country, what impact would there be if I decided to go super old-school and get a Presidential train car.
Side conversation; Airforce 1 is the Airliner the Pres flies on. Marine 1 is the helicoper. What would be the train designation?
Awful for security. Your whereabouts would be known at all times, and the USSS can’t protect every mile of track.
Locomotive 1
US-CAR 1 or uscar 1. We’ve had several before so it’s not particularly an abstract.
They’re all named after great explorers, Marco Polo, Ferdinand Magellan etc.
So theoretically if we got a new president who was into using trains to get around we could have a high speed uscar1 named Neil Armstrong or Yuri Gagarin? Though I assume astronauts wouldn’t be considered explorers and would be reserved for spacecraft the president is on
Correct though it’s unlikely any president will travel by train again given the best security is people simply not knowing where you are going or when. Being trapped in one direction is a big no no.
You KNOW that they’d have a fleet of helicopters, AWACS, fighter jets and vehicle escorts just hanging around the side of the running train.
imagine getting to be late for school because your bus got stuck at a Presidential Train Crossing, and being able to see the copters and jets fly over.
Was it McCain who said that he’d campaign in every state but was said to have regretted it because the time to travel to Hawaii, Alaska and a few other states (Idaho etc) were kid of a waste?
Choochoo McTrainFace 1
I read that in Ringo Star’s voice.
Depends on which branch manages the railcar:
http://www.railgoat.railfan.net/other_cars/1private/us_military/us_military.htm
Spaceforce 1
Land Sealion.
I mean Trainforce1 is right there, but Landforce1 sounds good too
Amtrak 1?
It would be a statement, that’s for sure.
Major problem is that Amtrak has the lowest priority on our rail network. Getting to a campaign rail-stop on time would be almost impossible without greasing some palms. So you’d have to hook up with a cargo rail line or something like that.
Edit: Now, if you had “improve rail transportation” as a major platform plank, showing up late would be a feature, not a bug.
Legally, passenger rail gets the highest priority.
However, the punishment for violating this is a fine which hasn’t been updated in decades. The rail companies realized a long time ago that it’s better to just take the fine instead of actually following the law.
They stopped wearing the identifying top hats. Anybody might be secretly wealthy now.
This feels like a holdover from the Teddy Roosevelt/robber baron era!
Seems more affordable than a private jet
Safer and more fun too!
should be called Amtrak Barnacles
I have an idea…
How many pack tops did that sucker cost?
Now I just need to know when and where Amtrak still operates. Because it ain’t around here.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Amtrak_routes
Geographic map of Amtrak services as of August 2025
Pathetic
I really is. 34,000km vs 200,000km for the EU. An area of comparable size and population. Germany alone has about as much as the US.
Theoretically, you can still do NY to LA?
New York to Louisiana? Sure can! (jk jk)
I’m looking at this and it’s so sad. Not just that several states lack lines altogether, but… The existing lines lack some obvious interconnections. Where’s the OKC to Albuquerque line? Or even El Paso to Albuquerque. Get those two long distinct lines connected! Similarly, a shortcut to Denver from the line that goes through KC and Albuquerque? And I think Jacksonville should get direct lines to Atlanta and New Orleans.
There’s so much that could be improved here with just a few tens of thousands of miles. Focus on better interconnections between the already existing routes first because it improves mobility for more people with fewer railroads to build, then build routes to cities currently completely unserviced (actually both should be done at the same time, just a bigger focus on the former early on)
Yup. I regularly have to travel flagstaff to Denver, and it would take me over two days to make the trip.
This is just Amtrak. There’s a lot more rail lines than Amtrak.
This is so much more baller than a private jet
“I am rich but I don’t need to rush around the country to keep being rich”
I’m gonna take my time and enjoy the ride. If you need me, come meet me on my train. I’m pulling into Kansas City tomorrow. See you there. Meanwhile I’m gonna have a cocktail and play some video games.
If I had to choose one, it would be the private rail car for sure.
