7 ms·

Freight rail fueled a new luxury overnight train startup

88 points by Ozarkian 1y ago

comrade1234 1y ago
I live in europe and have taken overnight trains to various destinations and they've all been nice - quiet, smooth, good food, decent nights sleep... I've also taken them in Egypt and Morocco and they were loud, jerky, and smelly... When I see pictures of trains in the USA they look very old and look like the locomotive is actually pulling the train vs providing electricity to each individual car's motors. This was the problem in Egypt and Morocco - the engine accelerate and all of the cars get jerked and when it slows down all of the cars get jerked again, making it hard to sleep.
- PaulHoule 1y ago
  Many American freight trains are diesel-electric where the locomotive supplies electricity but the motors are distributed. Notably train routes in Western Europe tend to be electrified and get all their energy from a catenary.
  - closewith 1y ago
    99 % of Class I freight locomotives in North America are diesel-electrics where a diesel genset provides power to electric motors on the locomotive. There are - to a rounding error - no freight locomotives provide electrical power to motors on the rake.
- mcfedr 1y ago
  Quality of the rails makes a big difference, take the train from Ukraine to Poland and it's suddenly super smooth once you cross over into the EU
  - jordanb 1y ago
    Track quality and maintenance by US mainlines are more Ukraine/Poland camp.
    - potato3732842 1y ago
      In the places where the average commenter lamenting US rail lives the track are crap because there's no reason to have everything be "cruise at 80mph" level smooth when you can't get a train up to such speeds before the next curve and even if you could there's invariably other rail traffic or a grade crossing soon thereafter. In BFE Texas or Utah or whatever the rails are like glass because crossing 300mi of nothing in 4hr instead of 8 has enough positive impact on the rest of the system that they deem it worth paying for. It makes sense if you think about everything in terms of time between points.
      - bell-cot 1y ago
        Pretty much. It is obviously a for-profit freight system - In areas where the RR's top-dollar freight customers (especially domestic parcel delivery companies) want speed, they'll happily spend big to make that happen. And in areas where the RoI on speed (whether upgrades, or ongoing maintenance of existing track) ain't there, they can be happy with 25MPH maximums: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_speed_limits_in_the_United_States#Track_classes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_speed_limits_in_the_Unite...
      - close04 1y ago
        > In BFE Texas or Utah or whatever the rails are like glass because crossing 300mi of nothing Europe is densely populated, you'll rarely see 300mi of nothing. High speed rail is still common. Only realistically limited by cost, not by the difficulty to get the train up to speed before the next curve, or other rail traffic, or grade crossings.
      - hylaride 1y ago
        95%+ of North American intercity trains run on freight tracks, which are not designed to be as "smooth". On top of this, freight having priority means passenger schedules get messed up all the time. Freight trains carry heavy loads and have cars that are not inspected to have perfectly maintained wheels to the same level as trains that run on tracks for only passenger traffic, especially high speed rail (which runs on dedicated , highly engineered tracks). The big reason that passenger rail, even overnight, isn't as economical in north america is because rather than sleeping on a train, it's cheaper and more reliable to just fly in a few hours across the country. HSR makes sense in the dense US northeast or between Windsor and Quebec city in Canada (and probably California if it wasn't politically ruined with it's meandering lines), but sleeper trains for further distances would have to be dirt cheap to compete with flying. It'd essentially be for college kids or poorer people. Most people who do long distance trains in North America are doing it as a cruise-like vacation/adventure.
- chiph 1y ago
  There's not a lot of electrified track in the US. The distances are just too great and our railroads are freight-first, passengers second (the opposite of Europe). Even so, the passenger trains don't make abrupt starts/stops like the freight trains do, because people would complain. :)
  - jordanb 1y ago
    Actually there used to be a lot more electrified track in the US but the freight railroads tore it out to reduce capital ratios and allow tall-stacking containers.
  - novia 1y ago
    > our railroads are freight-first, passengers second (the opposite of Europe). Common misconception. Amtrak actually has preference on US rails, but the track operators frequently ignore the law. It's been the law since 1973. https://www.progressiverailroading.com/federal_legislation_regulation/news/Bill-would-let-Amtrak-fight-freight-railroads-in-court-over-late-passenger-trains--73076 https://www.progressiverailroading.com/federal_legislation_r...
    - chiph 1y ago
      It's the difference between "should be" and "reality". (I blame precision scheduled railroading for creating freight trains so long that they can't use sidings)
      - novia 1y ago
        I believe they did this specifically so they would not have to use the sidings
- infecto 1y ago
  As others have said. Freight is first in the US. I imagine Europe probably has more semis on the road transporting cargo. Except for special routes, passenger travel by rail is only for those dedicated individuals.
  - philwelch 1y ago
    > I imagine Europe probably has more semis on the road transporting cargo. They absolutely do: unlike the US where more freight is transported by rail than truck, the opposite is true in Europe. And personally I think this is the right tradeoff. The efficiencies of rail over road vehicles scale up with mass. The US has 200 car freight trains hauling 400 shipping containers at a time; compared to 400 semi trucks that’s a massive improvement. European freight rail isn’t even capable of this level of scale; their railroads have maximum train lengths well below the US average. Freight is also much less fussy than passengers when it comes to scheduling, comfort, or speed, which is why this level of scale is possible for freight rail and not passenger rail.
- tengwar2 1y ago
  Even with a traditional diesel, you can get a good ride. I took the sleeper train from Istanbul to Pamukalle (Laodicea), and even over the single track sections it was smooth. It might be down to the driver planning ahead - this one was definitely proud of his work!
- bjornorn 1y ago
  European sleeper trains are usually also powered by locomotives, and the individual cars don't have motors, so I think the jerk motion you've experienced is caused my poor couplings or something else.
- xattt 1y ago
  You’re talking about EMU/DMUs versus locomotives. Higher-speed travel is less efficient with an MU than with a locomotive-pulled train. Higher-speed is important when North America is so large. See also: https://thebeaverton.com/2019/08/european-relatives-visiting-toronto-say-theyd-love-to-drive-and-see-the-rocky-mountains-while-theyre-here/ https://thebeaverton.com/2019/08/european-relatives-visiting...
  - ginko 1y ago
    American passenger trains are significantly slower than in Europe.
- ta1243 1y ago
  I took a train from New York to Miami last October in a "roomette". Sleep was fine, better than I get on UK sleepers. Food was amazingly good.
  - cguess 1y ago
    For those who don't know: The "roomette" is still your own room, with two beds that are couches during the day, and the porter converts them and makes your bed for you. Roomettes also have a toilet in them, so if you're with someone else they may be going to the dining car for a few minutes here and there. The car itself has a shower in it as well that shared by everyone on that car. It's really fun taking a shower at 80mph.
    - ta1243 1y ago
      I was on my own, so it was great. About 28 hours with various delays. Had the bed up top overnight, a few beers watching a couple of films on my laptop in the evening, nice dinner, great steak. Went to bed just after Washington, woke up somewhere around Georgia, nice breakfast, back to my "office" and a decent days work (no meetings as it was a Sunday, but I was sshed into many servers and didn't see any major issues with phone connectivity). Basically a moving hotel and office in one. There are more expensive rooms with private shower but that wasn't really value for money. I suspect the roomette would feel more cramped for two people, but it was better than spending 24 hours trying to relax and work in a new york hotel room.
chiph 1y ago
I'm surprised there isn't already a west-coast Auto Train like was briefly mentioned. The east coast one (used to bypass I-95 traffic) is often sold-out. Drop off your car for loading, take your carry-on to your seat or cabin, arrive the next morning. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29KW3OAPrD4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29KW3OAPrD4
- gregoriol 1y ago
  This should be developed more indeed: doing anything more than 200km by road is annoying and tiring. The solution in the video seems great with cars and passengers on the same train, if the "loading" time is not long. Why don't people drive their cars themselves in and then go to the passenger spaces? The american trains seems too high for Europe though. Would it work for vans and RVs too?
  - mschuster91 1y ago
    > doing anything more than 200km by road is annoying and tiring. Unless you are on a German Autobahn: drive on, go left lane, floor the gas pedal, and you cross that distance in an hour (or less).
    - trinix912 1y ago
      Apart from the traffic causing other (slower) drivers to enter the left lane. Not to mention that you have to be way more aware of everything around you if you're going 200. The cognitive load is bigger than parking on a train and taking a nap, perhaps even overnight so you're set to continue driving in the morning.
      - gregoriol 1y ago
        Definitely that! Going faster is more intense: more stimulation, more reactions, but also more noise, more vibrations, ... so for the same distance, even with less time, you'll end up tired the same or more.
    - deleted 1y ago
JKCalhoun 1y ago
Wait, so is this first-class rail service for who? For those whose private jets are in the shop? I instead so look forward to just making the existing services more convenient/affordable where you would prefer taking the train — look forward to it even. I still have a memory of walking through a train car at night (going from Kansas City to Chicago) when I was 4 or 5 years old. Passengers sitting, sipping cocktails in the observation car like a scene out of "The Thin Man". I've taken the California Zephyr to Omaha a few times over the past decade. It was okay. But expensive as I recall.
- dylan604 1y ago
  > But expensive as I recall And slow. For many ‘muricans, they only get two weeks of vacation, and it is very rare that their employer will allow them to take all of that time at once. I don’t care what you get as a cushy HN reader, your situation is not most ‘murican. When you only get to take a couple of days, you don’t want to be spending it in transit. As it is now, air travel pretty much takes up a full day with arriving x hours early, delays, etc.
  - afavour 1y ago
    That’s where, theoretically at least, the “sleeper” part comes in. Travel great distances while you sleep and save the money on a hotel room. If the conditions were good enough I’d be perfectly happy to be on a train e.g. 6pm-6am rather than arriving at an airport at 6pm, doing security, baggage etc etc, taxiing to the center of a city then checking into a hotel late. But every time I look the pricing for that is way out of whack.
    - grues-dinner 1y ago
      That's the one thing that's a little annoying about the gaotie in China. It doesn't run at night, so you are limited to about 1200km a night on the slower overnight D trains (Beijing Shanghai say). Otherwise you could hop on a train in Beijing in the evening and wake up in Hong Kong, Shenzhen or Guangzhou.
efitz 1y ago
I love the aromatherapy candles :lol:
martinald 1y ago
Unfortunately this is unlikely to be successful. There is just no way you can run a reliable overnight passenger service on the intercity rail infrastructure of the US. The track is mostly single track and heavily used by freight (where a few hours delay isn't the end of the world). Multi hour delays are extremely common and even with it being overnight, if you set off at say 11pm and aim to arrive at 8am, a 3 hour delay could see you arriving at 11am and your VIP passengers missing all their business meetings. They won't return! FWIW I don't think Europe's push to overnight rail trains will be very effective either. It doesn't work well with overnight maintenance windows, and the yield per train is extremely low (100 passengers in 50 'rooms' vs 1000 normal seating passengers dictate a 10x ticket price). Also is extremely complex in Europe with many different signalling/communication systems, traction systems, etc.
- gregoriol 1y ago
  It's quite successful in Europe
  - mschuster91 1y ago
    Yeah it's decent but the utter majority of cross European passenger travel happens by road and air.
  - f6v 1y ago
    Like, where? I lived in four EU countries and travelled to most of member states. I only heard of Austrian sleeper and some luxury Swiss expertise. Never heard anyone taking a sleeper in the modern times. Moscow-Paris train used to be a thing, but that’s in the past.
    - ghaff 1y ago
      There's the London to Edinburgh Caledonian Express which I took and I took a sleeper from Brussels to Koln to Vienna? Koln was a stopover. Forget where the sleeper segment was. But I'll admit it was situations where neither time nor money were critical and were intermixed with business trips.
ramesh31 1y ago
Just looked up tickets on the Coast Starlight, Emeryville to LA is a $790 round trip in a standard bedroom. Assuming a "luxury" train service is at least double that, you could hire a private driver for less than this and be there in less than half the time... or take a $150 flight. Nothing will change about the economics of rail in this country until we actually make the investment in having legitimate service.
AnotherGoodName 1y ago
>Amtrak’s all-sleeper California Zephyr ended service between Chicago and Emeryville, California, in 1997 Interesting statement since it still runs and you can book a private sleeper room for that route. Same with the coast starlight train that already runs the SF-LA route with sleeper cars. Note the weasel word all-sleeper. They run a non-sleeper passenger also car on both of the above for those getting off at the smaller stations on the way so that’s how they can claim those services don’t exist when you can just go book them online right now.
- AnotherGoodName 1y ago
  Btw for anyone curious the zephyr between emeryville and denver is up there for one of the most scenic routes in the world. Along the inlets of the bay, up the sierra nevadas, through the great basin, through the moab desert with mesas either side and then into the rocky mountains winding along cliff tops. It goes through the salt flats and salt lake city at night but the daytime views either side of that one night are incredible and make the train trip entirely worthwhile. A great way to experience a sleeper car, you’ll see why people do it rather than fly and a great experience all round. Don’t bother with the denver to chicago leg though unless you really like corn fields (chicago is absolutely worthwhile visiting but probably not worth the extra night on the train when you can fly)
  - temp0826 1y ago
    The only time I took a sleeper was uh...at night. Is that not the case/point with them? (Scenic or not would be moot)
    - AnotherGoodName 1y ago
      8am start in emeryville. 7:30pm finish in denver the next day. Getting from a to b is definitely not the point of such a trip. Think of it as a hotel where the view changes constantly and you just happen to end up somewhere new at the end of the stay.
    - seanmcdirmid 1y ago
royskee 1y ago
In the Washington, DC area, the Dover Harbor is a private rail car available for charter or one can join on select public trips. I believe it attaches to Amtrak trains. https://doverharbor.com/ https://doverharbor.com/
petesergeant 1y ago
As I get older, overnight train journeys are less and less appealing. My last few go-arounds on the Caledonian Sleeper have been expensive and left me exhausted with a very poor night's sleep. That "Dreamstar stateroom" they have a picture of is going to be excessively expensive.
- ghaff 1y ago
  I enjoyed it as an experience but it wasn't cheap and not sure I would necessarily do again. With light enough luggage getting to Heathrow (or one of the other London airports) isn't a big deal and don't recall getting in from Edinburgh's airport being an ordeal either.
jasonliu0704 1y ago
who need a overnight train if you have a high speed rail!
- bergie 1y ago
  Sleeper trains can be more convenient for some business travel. Leave in the evening, arrive right in the beginning of the business day well rested. We also did a lot of tourism in Europe with night trains. No need to book hotels or lose daytime in travel, always start the day in a new city.
oldpersonintx2 1y ago
[dead]
fblp 1y ago
There's another variation of this I'd like to see. A train you can work on during the day. With a private desk space with monitor etc where you could do zoom calls. Wouldn't need sleeping space. These would be especially good for 3-4hr trips.
- ant6n 1y ago
  Best is if you combine the private office during the day with the sleeping cabin at night. Bonus points if you can get that at high density.
zokier 1y ago
LA-SF distance is roughly 560km, that feels relatively short for overnight train? Like it's comparable to Madrid-Barcelona (500ish km) which is 2h37min by train, or Paris-Bordeaux at 2h11min; I doubt anyone is considering sleepers for those routes?
- ted_dunning 1y ago
  LA-SF is nearly 500 MILES. That's close to 800km and driving through LA makes it feel like 1000km. If the sleeper would extend on to San Diego, this would be a sweet item for me.
  - zokier 1y ago
    Google Maps gives LA-SF straight line distance as 347 miles and driving instructions (via I-5) as 381 miles.
noduerme 1y ago
LA to SF doesn't make a lot of sense to me as an overnight route. Suppose you leave at 10pm. You get in at maybe 4am, maybe you got 5 hours of sleep, and have to wait 12 hours to check into a hotel...? 6 hours is maybe justifiable for the comfort compared to getting to LAX in traffic, checking in for a flight, then crawling out of SFO... why not run it during the day? Save the sleeper portion for getting to PDX and Seattle? Also, is the spa going to be open at 1am?
- slyall 1y ago
  Thats not how it works normally. The train doesn't get in till around 7-8am. Often sleeper trains will park of a few hours overnight. So you'll be able to sleep for around 8 hours. The idea is you get in around 8am (hopefully in station near the middle of the city) and then you can get on with you days activities immediately.
wiether 1y ago
What's up with luxury trains? Now that airports are crowded with peasants thanks to low-cost companies, and private jets are still a bit too expansive, the new hype is to stay in a moving hotel? They are launching something similar in France https://legrandtour.com/en https://legrandtour.com/en
- ghaff 1y ago
  Assumption is probably that you're willing to pay (a reasonable amount) for comfort, a day or two of extra travel time isn't a big deal, you find advantages for city to city center travel (though you don't actually get that with San Francisco), and don't really like driving long distances. And private jets are more than a "bit" more expensive for most people. Multiples of first/business class even for a group.
kylehotchkiss 1y ago
I took the coast starlight from SD to Seattle last year. I loved it. I wished there were more availability for LA to SF other than a single train. So long as the route had better internet than it does now, I’d prefer that to driving up in the future.
paxys 1y ago
An overnight SF-LA train will work IF: - They time it exactly right, so something like boarding at 10pm, reaching at 7am, and I am able to get a full night of sleep in the middle. - They price it to be competitive with a $79 flight or $60 worth of gas. I'm assuming both of them, especially the second, will be a solid "no".
- ghaff 1y ago
  And... there's convenient car rental at arrival which will almost certainly be needed in LA. And the price will almost certainly be in the hundreds of dollars. Without looking it up, I'm assuming the price for a non-sleeper is over $100 today.
- jt2190 1y ago
  USD 80 values your time at 0, one extra night in a hotel at 0, the wear and tear on your car at 0, parking at 0…
tristanb 1y ago
I wish someone would bring back the Snow train that used to go SF -> Sugarbowl.
- ted_dunning 1y ago
  Check out the ski train from Denver to Winter Park.
bombcar 1y ago
> That includes 400 miles between San Jose and Ventura, which the partners say has minimal overnight freight and passenger traffic. If this is the route the Coast Starlight takes (this train already runs daily and offers sleeper cars https://content.amtrak.com/content/timetable/Coast%20Starlight.pdf https://content.amtrak.com/content/timetable/Coast%20Starlig... ) it has enough freight activity that the only time I've taken it we were delayed because a car had derailed. As for the rest of it, not having a locomotive selected or any cars and hoping to start service by 2028 is ... shall we say, optimistic?

88 points by Ozarkian 1y ago

I live in europe and have taken overnight trains to various destinations and they've all been nice - quiet, smooth, good food, decent nights sleep... I've also taken them in Egypt and Morocco and they were loud, jerky, and smelly... When I see pictures of trains in the USA they look very old and look like the locomotive is actually pulling the train vs providing electricity to each individual car's motors. This was the problem in Egypt and Morocco - the engine accelerate and all of the cars get jerked and when it slows down all of the cars get jerked again, making it hard to sleep.

PaulHoule 1y ago
Many American freight trains are diesel-electric where the locomotive supplies electricity but the motors are distributed. Notably train routes in Western Europe tend to be electrified and get all their energy from a catenary.
- closewith 1y ago
  99 % of Class I freight locomotives in North America are diesel-electrics where a diesel genset provides power to electric motors on the locomotive. There are - to a rounding error - no freight locomotives provide electrical power to motors on the rake.
mcfedr 1y ago
Quality of the rails makes a big difference, take the train from Ukraine to Poland and it's suddenly super smooth once you cross over into the EU
- jordanb 1y ago
  Track quality and maintenance by US mainlines are more Ukraine/Poland camp.
  - potato3732842 1y ago
    In the places where the average commenter lamenting US rail lives the track are crap because there's no reason to have everything be "cruise at 80mph" level smooth when you can't get a train up to such speeds before the next curve and even if you could there's invariably other rail traffic or a grade crossing soon thereafter. In BFE Texas or Utah or whatever the rails are like glass because crossing 300mi of nothing in 4hr instead of 8 has enough positive impact on the rest of the system that they deem it worth paying for. It makes sense if you think about everything in terms of time between points.
    - bell-cot 1y ago
      Pretty much. It is obviously a for-profit freight system - In areas where the RR's top-dollar freight customers (especially domestic parcel delivery companies) want speed, they'll happily spend big to make that happen. And in areas where the RoI on speed (whether upgrades, or ongoing maintenance of existing track) ain't there, they can be happy with 25MPH maximums: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_speed_limits_in_the_United_States#Track_classes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_speed_limits_in_the_Unite...
    - close04 1y ago
      > In BFE Texas or Utah or whatever the rails are like glass because crossing 300mi of nothing Europe is densely populated, you'll rarely see 300mi of nothing. High speed rail is still common. Only realistically limited by cost, not by the difficulty to get the train up to speed before the next curve, or other rail traffic, or grade crossings.
    - hylaride 1y ago
      95%+ of North American intercity trains run on freight tracks, which are not designed to be as "smooth". On top of this, freight having priority means passenger schedules get messed up all the time. Freight trains carry heavy loads and have cars that are not inspected to have perfectly maintained wheels to the same level as trains that run on tracks for only passenger traffic, especially high speed rail (which runs on dedicated , highly engineered tracks). The big reason that passenger rail, even overnight, isn't as economical in north america is because rather than sleeping on a train, it's cheaper and more reliable to just fly in a few hours across the country. HSR makes sense in the dense US northeast or between Windsor and Quebec city in Canada (and probably California if it wasn't politically ruined with it's meandering lines), but sleeper trains for further distances would have to be dirt cheap to compete with flying. It'd essentially be for college kids or poorer people. Most people who do long distance trains in North America are doing it as a cruise-like vacation/adventure.
chiph 1y ago
There's not a lot of electrified track in the US. The distances are just too great and our railroads are freight-first, passengers second (the opposite of Europe). Even so, the passenger trains don't make abrupt starts/stops like the freight trains do, because people would complain. :)
- jordanb 1y ago
  Actually there used to be a lot more electrified track in the US but the freight railroads tore it out to reduce capital ratios and allow tall-stacking containers.
- novia 1y ago
  > our railroads are freight-first, passengers second (the opposite of Europe). Common misconception. Amtrak actually has preference on US rails, but the track operators frequently ignore the law. It's been the law since 1973. https://www.progressiverailroading.com/federal_legislation_regulation/news/Bill-would-let-Amtrak-fight-freight-railroads-in-court-over-late-passenger-trains--73076 https://www.progressiverailroading.com/federal_legislation_r...
  - chiph 1y ago
    It's the difference between "should be" and "reality". (I blame precision scheduled railroading for creating freight trains so long that they can't use sidings)
    - novia 1y ago
      I believe they did this specifically so they would not have to use the sidings
infecto 1y ago
As others have said. Freight is first in the US. I imagine Europe probably has more semis on the road transporting cargo. Except for special routes, passenger travel by rail is only for those dedicated individuals.
- philwelch 1y ago
  > I imagine Europe probably has more semis on the road transporting cargo. They absolutely do: unlike the US where more freight is transported by rail than truck, the opposite is true in Europe. And personally I think this is the right tradeoff. The efficiencies of rail over road vehicles scale up with mass. The US has 200 car freight trains hauling 400 shipping containers at a time; compared to 400 semi trucks that’s a massive improvement. European freight rail isn’t even capable of this level of scale; their railroads have maximum train lengths well below the US average. Freight is also much less fussy than passengers when it comes to scheduling, comfort, or speed, which is why this level of scale is possible for freight rail and not passenger rail.
tengwar2 1y ago
Even with a traditional diesel, you can get a good ride. I took the sleeper train from Istanbul to Pamukalle (Laodicea), and even over the single track sections it was smooth. It might be down to the driver planning ahead - this one was definitely proud of his work!
bjornorn 1y ago
European sleeper trains are usually also powered by locomotives, and the individual cars don't have motors, so I think the jerk motion you've experienced is caused my poor couplings or something else.
xattt 1y ago
You’re talking about EMU/DMUs versus locomotives. Higher-speed travel is less efficient with an MU than with a locomotive-pulled train. Higher-speed is important when North America is so large. See also: https://thebeaverton.com/2019/08/european-relatives-visiting-toronto-say-theyd-love-to-drive-and-see-the-rocky-mountains-while-theyre-here/ https://thebeaverton.com/2019/08/european-relatives-visiting...
- ginko 1y ago
  American passenger trains are significantly slower than in Europe.
ta1243 1y ago
I took a train from New York to Miami last October in a "roomette". Sleep was fine, better than I get on UK sleepers. Food was amazingly good.
- cguess 1y ago
  For those who don't know: The "roomette" is still your own room, with two beds that are couches during the day, and the porter converts them and makes your bed for you. Roomettes also have a toilet in them, so if you're with someone else they may be going to the dining car for a few minutes here and there. The car itself has a shower in it as well that shared by everyone on that car. It's really fun taking a shower at 80mph.
  - ta1243 1y ago
    I was on my own, so it was great. About 28 hours with various delays. Had the bed up top overnight, a few beers watching a couple of films on my laptop in the evening, nice dinner, great steak. Went to bed just after Washington, woke up somewhere around Georgia, nice breakfast, back to my "office" and a decent days work (no meetings as it was a Sunday, but I was sshed into many servers and didn't see any major issues with phone connectivity). Basically a moving hotel and office in one. There are more expensive rooms with private shower but that wasn't really value for money. I suspect the roomette would feel more cramped for two people, but it was better than spending 24 hours trying to relax and work in a new york hotel room.

chiph 1y ago

I'm surprised there isn't already a west-coast Auto Train like was briefly mentioned. The east coast one (used to bypass I-95 traffic) is often sold-out. Drop off your car for loading, take your carry-on to your seat or cabin, arrive the next morning. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29KW3OAPrD4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29KW3OAPrD4

gregoriol 1y ago
This should be developed more indeed: doing anything more than 200km by road is annoying and tiring. The solution in the video seems great with cars and passengers on the same train, if the "loading" time is not long. Why don't people drive their cars themselves in and then go to the passenger spaces? The american trains seems too high for Europe though. Would it work for vans and RVs too?
- mschuster91 1y ago
  > doing anything more than 200km by road is annoying and tiring. Unless you are on a German Autobahn: drive on, go left lane, floor the gas pedal, and you cross that distance in an hour (or less).
  - trinix912 1y ago
    Apart from the traffic causing other (slower) drivers to enter the left lane. Not to mention that you have to be way more aware of everything around you if you're going 200. The cognitive load is bigger than parking on a train and taking a nap, perhaps even overnight so you're set to continue driving in the morning.
    - gregoriol 1y ago
      Definitely that! Going faster is more intense: more stimulation, more reactions, but also more noise, more vibrations, ... so for the same distance, even with less time, you'll end up tired the same or more.
  - deleted 1y ago

JKCalhoun 1y ago

Wait, so is this first-class rail service for who? For those whose private jets are in the shop? I instead so look forward to just making the existing services more convenient/affordable where you would prefer taking the train — look forward to it even. I still have a memory of walking through a train car at night (going from Kansas City to Chicago) when I was 4 or 5 years old. Passengers sitting, sipping cocktails in the observation car like a scene out of "The Thin Man". I've taken the California Zephyr to Omaha a few times over the past decade. It was okay. But expensive as I recall.

dylan604 1y ago
> But expensive as I recall And slow. For many ‘muricans, they only get two weeks of vacation, and it is very rare that their employer will allow them to take all of that time at once. I don’t care what you get as a cushy HN reader, your situation is not most ‘murican. When you only get to take a couple of days, you don’t want to be spending it in transit. As it is now, air travel pretty much takes up a full day with arriving x hours early, delays, etc.
- afavour 1y ago
  That’s where, theoretically at least, the “sleeper” part comes in. Travel great distances while you sleep and save the money on a hotel room. If the conditions were good enough I’d be perfectly happy to be on a train e.g. 6pm-6am rather than arriving at an airport at 6pm, doing security, baggage etc etc, taxiing to the center of a city then checking into a hotel late. But every time I look the pricing for that is way out of whack.
  - grues-dinner 1y ago
    That's the one thing that's a little annoying about the gaotie in China. It doesn't run at night, so you are limited to about 1200km a night on the slower overnight D trains (Beijing Shanghai say). Otherwise you could hop on a train in Beijing in the evening and wake up in Hong Kong, Shenzhen or Guangzhou.

efitz 1y ago

I love the aromatherapy candles :lol:

martinald 1y ago

Unfortunately this is unlikely to be successful. There is just no way you can run a reliable overnight passenger service on the intercity rail infrastructure of the US. The track is mostly single track and heavily used by freight (where a few hours delay isn't the end of the world). Multi hour delays are extremely common and even with it being overnight, if you set off at say 11pm and aim to arrive at 8am, a 3 hour delay could see you arriving at 11am and your VIP passengers missing all their business meetings. They won't return! FWIW I don't think Europe's push to overnight rail trains will be very effective either. It doesn't work well with overnight maintenance windows, and the yield per train is extremely low (100 passengers in 50 'rooms' vs 1000 normal seating passengers dictate a 10x ticket price). Also is extremely complex in Europe with many different signalling/communication systems, traction systems, etc.

gregoriol 1y ago
It's quite successful in Europe
- mschuster91 1y ago
  Yeah it's decent but the utter majority of cross European passenger travel happens by road and air.
- f6v 1y ago
  Like, where? I lived in four EU countries and travelled to most of member states. I only heard of Austrian sleeper and some luxury Swiss expertise. Never heard anyone taking a sleeper in the modern times. Moscow-Paris train used to be a thing, but that’s in the past.
  - ghaff 1y ago
    There's the London to Edinburgh Caledonian Express which I took and I took a sleeper from Brussels to Koln to Vienna? Koln was a stopover. Forget where the sleeper segment was. But I'll admit it was situations where neither time nor money were critical and were intermixed with business trips.

ramesh31 1y ago

Just looked up tickets on the Coast Starlight, Emeryville to LA is a $790 round trip in a standard bedroom. Assuming a "luxury" train service is at least double that, you could hire a private driver for less than this and be there in less than half the time... or take a $150 flight. Nothing will change about the economics of rail in this country until we actually make the investment in having legitimate service.

AnotherGoodName 1y ago

>Amtrak’s all-sleeper California Zephyr ended service between Chicago and Emeryville, California, in 1997 Interesting statement since it still runs and you can book a private sleeper room for that route. Same with the coast starlight train that already runs the SF-LA route with sleeper cars. Note the weasel word all-sleeper. They run a non-sleeper passenger also car on both of the above for those getting off at the smaller stations on the way so that’s how they can claim those services don’t exist when you can just go book them online right now.

AnotherGoodName 1y ago
Btw for anyone curious the zephyr between emeryville and denver is up there for one of the most scenic routes in the world. Along the inlets of the bay, up the sierra nevadas, through the great basin, through the moab desert with mesas either side and then into the rocky mountains winding along cliff tops. It goes through the salt flats and salt lake city at night but the daytime views either side of that one night are incredible and make the train trip entirely worthwhile. A great way to experience a sleeper car, you’ll see why people do it rather than fly and a great experience all round. Don’t bother with the denver to chicago leg though unless you really like corn fields (chicago is absolutely worthwhile visiting but probably not worth the extra night on the train when you can fly)
- temp0826 1y ago
  The only time I took a sleeper was uh...at night. Is that not the case/point with them? (Scenic or not would be moot)
  - AnotherGoodName 1y ago
    8am start in emeryville. 7:30pm finish in denver the next day. Getting from a to b is definitely not the point of such a trip. Think of it as a hotel where the view changes constantly and you just happen to end up somewhere new at the end of the stay.
  - seanmcdirmid 1y ago

royskee 1y ago

In the Washington, DC area, the Dover Harbor is a private rail car available for charter or one can join on select public trips. I believe it attaches to Amtrak trains. https://doverharbor.com/ https://doverharbor.com/

petesergeant 1y ago

As I get older, overnight train journeys are less and less appealing. My last few go-arounds on the Caledonian Sleeper have been expensive and left me exhausted with a very poor night's sleep. That "Dreamstar stateroom" they have a picture of is going to be excessively expensive.

ghaff 1y ago
I enjoyed it as an experience but it wasn't cheap and not sure I would necessarily do again. With light enough luggage getting to Heathrow (or one of the other London airports) isn't a big deal and don't recall getting in from Edinburgh's airport being an ordeal either.

jasonliu0704 1y ago

who need a overnight train if you have a high speed rail!

bergie 1y ago
Sleeper trains can be more convenient for some business travel. Leave in the evening, arrive right in the beginning of the business day well rested. We also did a lot of tourism in Europe with night trains. No need to book hotels or lose daytime in travel, always start the day in a new city.

oldpersonintx2 1y ago

[dead]

fblp 1y ago

There's another variation of this I'd like to see. A train you can work on during the day. With a private desk space with monitor etc where you could do zoom calls. Wouldn't need sleeping space. These would be especially good for 3-4hr trips.

ant6n 1y ago
Best is if you combine the private office during the day with the sleeping cabin at night. Bonus points if you can get that at high density.

zokier 1y ago

LA-SF distance is roughly 560km, that feels relatively short for overnight train? Like it's comparable to Madrid-Barcelona (500ish km) which is 2h37min by train, or Paris-Bordeaux at 2h11min; I doubt anyone is considering sleepers for those routes?

ted_dunning 1y ago
LA-SF is nearly 500 MILES. That's close to 800km and driving through LA makes it feel like 1000km. If the sleeper would extend on to San Diego, this would be a sweet item for me.
- zokier 1y ago
  Google Maps gives LA-SF straight line distance as 347 miles and driving instructions (via I-5) as 381 miles.

noduerme 1y ago

LA to SF doesn't make a lot of sense to me as an overnight route. Suppose you leave at 10pm. You get in at maybe 4am, maybe you got 5 hours of sleep, and have to wait 12 hours to check into a hotel...? 6 hours is maybe justifiable for the comfort compared to getting to LAX in traffic, checking in for a flight, then crawling out of SFO... why not run it during the day? Save the sleeper portion for getting to PDX and Seattle? Also, is the spa going to be open at 1am?

slyall 1y ago
Thats not how it works normally. The train doesn't get in till around 7-8am. Often sleeper trains will park of a few hours overnight. So you'll be able to sleep for around 8 hours. The idea is you get in around 8am (hopefully in station near the middle of the city) and then you can get on with you days activities immediately.

wiether 1y ago

What's up with luxury trains? Now that airports are crowded with peasants thanks to low-cost companies, and private jets are still a bit too expansive, the new hype is to stay in a moving hotel? They are launching something similar in France https://legrandtour.com/en https://legrandtour.com/en

ghaff 1y ago
Assumption is probably that you're willing to pay (a reasonable amount) for comfort, a day or two of extra travel time isn't a big deal, you find advantages for city to city center travel (though you don't actually get that with San Francisco), and don't really like driving long distances. And private jets are more than a "bit" more expensive for most people. Multiples of first/business class even for a group.

kylehotchkiss 1y ago

I took the coast starlight from SD to Seattle last year. I loved it. I wished there were more availability for LA to SF other than a single train. So long as the route had better internet than it does now, I’d prefer that to driving up in the future.

paxys 1y ago

An overnight SF-LA train will work IF: - They time it exactly right, so something like boarding at 10pm, reaching at 7am, and I am able to get a full night of sleep in the middle. - They price it to be competitive with a $79 flight or $60 worth of gas. I'm assuming both of them, especially the second, will be a solid "no".

ghaff 1y ago
And... there's convenient car rental at arrival which will almost certainly be needed in LA. And the price will almost certainly be in the hundreds of dollars. Without looking it up, I'm assuming the price for a non-sleeper is over $100 today.
jt2190 1y ago
USD 80 values your time at 0, one extra night in a hotel at 0, the wear and tear on your car at 0, parking at 0…

tristanb 1y ago

I wish someone would bring back the Snow train that used to go SF -> Sugarbowl.

ted_dunning 1y ago
Check out the ski train from Denver to Winter Park.

bombcar 1y ago

> That includes 400 miles between San Jose and Ventura, which the partners say has minimal overnight freight and passenger traffic. If this is the route the Coast Starlight takes (this train already runs daily and offers sleeper cars https://content.amtrak.com/content/timetable/Coast%20Starlight.pdf https://content.amtrak.com/content/timetable/Coast%20Starlig... ) it has enough freight activity that the only time I've taken it we were delayed because a car had derailed. As for the rest of it, not having a locomotive selected or any cars and hoping to start service by 2028 is ... shall we say, optimistic?