Buy a train, bridge or tracks from the Swiss Railway
sbbresale.chYou 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.
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.
The infrastructure operators have to allow anyone with a train operating license on their tracks, and such license is very nontrivial to acquire.
Usually you would hire a train from a train operating company, and those companies are not required to rent out their trains - although several have been set up explicitly with that goal, of course.
Back in Victorian times very rich people owned their own railway carriage which they would have hauled across country.
Basically like it still is in the US.
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.
They don't seem to say why it didn't work.
I wonder if it was not just the change in gauge, but tolerances as well.
I got to see "Dr. Yellow" running on the shinkansen line and it checks everything out.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_Yellow
I wonder if the slower-speed lines have looser tolerances.
Then maybe running the gauge-change train on the slower lines might kill the train's tolerances before it moves back to the super smooth high-speed lines.
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).
No, it isn't easy to change at all. Not unless the car was specifically designed for it, and not nearly that much of a jump. The ones that exist in real life are almost all for switching between Russian (5ft) and Standard (4ft 8.5in) gauges.
To be eligible to run as part of an Amtrak train any car must past all FRA rules/guidelines, which a Euro-spec car absolutely will not without hundreds of thousands of dollars of work.
It would be MUCH cheaper to start with a car already in the US and meeting those standards. Much, much cheaper. Still not cheap, but in the realm of the practical.
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.
Not notice loud banging and violent shaking underneath you? You can sleep through that, with practice, but you will notice it.
It's actually rather quiet from the relatively sound-proof interior, and there is no noticeable shaking.
These aren't American trains.
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.)
> (Although in some cases you are woken up for border formalities.)
Yeah although you can just stay in bed for this. I've been on the train. The Chinese officials just wake you up, stamp your passport, and off you go to sleep.
Then the Mongolian officials came on, asked me a couple questions to see whether I respected their country, why I was going there, grumbled something unintelligble, stamped my passport and moved on.
Much better than getting in line for 2 hours if you ask me (which is what happened at the Bulgaria/Turkey border and the Georgia/Armenia border when I crossed those)
For day trains as well, more often within Spain than on the border with France.
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.
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.
Part of doing this is knowing the rules and the “real rules” - you have the car attached at an end node (Los Angeles or San Diego, say) even if your group gets on in Burbank.
There is a fee schedule available: https://www.amtrak.com/content/dam/projects/dotcom/english/p...
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.
Somewhere, the locomotove nomads travel the wastes of North America in their reinforced rail cars. They never speak to one another, but sometimes you can glimpse the deisel smoke of a distant train on the horizon at sunset…
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
It’s a question I ask my therapist all the time :)
Someone should definitely forward this to Kim Jong Un, maybe they also make a custom armored version.
I just want the clocks. Mondaine tries, but they aren't the same. That 58.5 second rotation then pause is quite clever.
Mondaine also sells their Stop2Go collection, which is specifically designed to do the pause at 58 seconds
After my first visit to Switzerland, I knew I needed one of those clocks for my home. Unfortunately the ones available are cheap (though expensive) and don't have the second hand dwell at the top of each minute.
I remember when Apple just went and stole the Swiss railway clocks. See: https://www.techmonitor.ai/technology/apple-pays-21mn-to-swi...
I thought trademarks were for brand distinction. Since it doesn't seem like anyone is going to confuse an ipad with a wristwatch let alone the operator of a train station I don't understand the issue.
Well anyway why couldn't they have removed the circle on the end of the second hand and called it a day? Regardless of how I feel about the legal situation how is that circle worth $20 million to them?
Here is an original from a German station (in the design of the 1950ies):
https://www.kleinanzeigen.de/s-anzeige/bahnhofsuhr/343129269...
I always thought I was just imagine a pause at the full minute.
Wait for it, wait for it... Click.
Aaaah.
Just to confirm, so SBB has a bridge to sell you?
The central clock dependency is cool, but I wonder is there were any problems with latency -- like does the centralized electrical impulse reach a train station 10km away and another one at 20km at the same time? Did they factor that in?
Isn't that propagating with around the speed of light? Switzerland is only about 1 light ms wide so even if they only have one master clock instead of one per train station the latency should be negligible especially in the 1950s.
I know the Swiss are known for punctuality and timekeeping, but I don’t think anyone is going to notice a 33μs delay to their train.
The speed of light is copper wires is fast enough that you don't need to factor this in. At least not for human purposes.
Even if you did, I think the time it takes to move the second+minute hand from a stop is longer than the time it takes the signal to get there.
If I was filthy rich, I'd buy a plot of land near a railway line (that is at least attached to the main lines), build my own siding, and buy one of DSB's IC3 MUs[0], maybe also an IR4 MU[1], so they can together ride on electrified and non-electrified tracks. Then refurbish their interior, install as many signal compatibility systems, and, for the IR4, have it support as many overhead voltage systems as possible. I have a soft spot for the MF/ER class trains.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DSB_Class_MF [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DSB_Class_MF#IR4_%22InterRegio...
That is exactly how the Halton County Railway Museum near Toronto came to be. A bunch of dudes bought an old streetcar (tram) to save it from the scrappers and built a track on some property to have fun driving it around. https://hcry.org/
Most people do this as part of a club. You join the club and combine everyone's money to buy the things needed, and then everyone in the club can enjoy it.
"Clubs" as a thing is such a great concept, and if you feel like there is some humanity missing because of all the things going on, they're real places with lots of humans and humanity in them. They work great for lots of things, from trains, computing, music to boats, puppets, gardening and whatever else. If there is no club where you live, you'll surely find at least one other member if you start it yourself :)
I have 13 acres. My dream is to have a homebuilt rail system around the land. Probably can't afford professional stuff so I'll have to get creative.
There is a tourist attraction here in New Zealand that started its life as a way for a potter, Barry Brickell, to get his clay and fuel for the kilns to his studio. It’s a beautiful spot, particularly if you manage to avoid a busy time.
I’m sure there are other mini ones out there.
https://drivingcreek.nz/activities/driving-creek-railway-tou...
https://drivingcreek.nz/activities/driving-creek-railway-tou...
I can now say my dream is not unrealistic.
Thanks for this!
Or maybe donate it to the Illinois Railway Museum (irm.org) so that they could run it for more people than just yourself.
If we're doing hypotheticals, why not both?
A similar option is available in North America (1).
Very niche, and it’s run by Larry Paikin, 93-year-old father of legendary Canadian journalist Steve Paikin.
Curse you. Now I have a new objective in life.
For those of this persuasion in the Montreal area we have https://exporail.org
What a charming little website!
If anyone is looking for a german train: https://www.db-gebrauchtzug.de
If I was rich I’d go to a small town in a developing country and create a monorail. I’d buy up a 4km by 4km plot of land and create a car free city ( aside from emergency vehicles).
Free public transport, bikes and shoes for everyone
I've sold monorails to Brockway, Ogdenville, and North Haverbrook, and, by gum, it put them on the map!
Mumbai has a Monorail.
How has that worked out?
They don’t scale.
The Disneyland one is nice.
Monorails suck and are properity garabage. Is a recepy for bad transit at increase cost.
This one seems to work... surprisingly well, considering how bonkers it is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wuppertal_Schwebebahn
I've always wondered why they've been so generally unsuccessful; conventional elevated rail works fairly well, and at least in theory they should be much cheaper and less obtrusive.
I didnt say they dont work. You just end up with highly costume properitery stuff.
Sure, but there's no reason that _has_ to be the case. Like, there've been attempts at standards; the volume is just never really there to make any of them _the_ standard.
Underground metro systems mostly started off as deeply weird and proprietary, as well (look at this one, weird gauge, tiny little trains, originally _cable_ operated: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glasgow_Subway), but nowadays they're _fairly_ standard, say.
Sure but they aren't and even if there was, for anything but single lines they are worse. Most cities already have a rail system and extending that is better.
Monorail operations aren't cheaper, at best their construction is cheaper. But if you need interchanges it gets more expensive again.
Its simple really they over very few actual advantages while having many disadvantages, so when they are built its usually because some monorail builder managed to convince some local politicians despite most experts saying they should just build normal rail.
This. The general concept of "terrible public transport tech disguising as a good & novel idea" has a name: gadgetbahn.
Japan has plenty of monorails and they work great. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monorails_in_Japan
Yes they work but not better then normal trains and worse in some ways. Qnd in terms of sharing infrastructure maintaince, signaling and so on its worse.
The prices are really quite good for a country where everything is so expensive. Only 3000 for an aluminium rail car. Probably the scrap metal value is higher than 3000, although you could spend far more than 3000 transporting it to the scrap yard.
That last bit is the killer, from their website,machine translated:
"The buyer is responsible for organizing loading, transport, customs clearance, etc., as well as any associated costs. The vehicles are available immediately and are delivered uncleaned from the storage location (Bonfol train station). "
It's always the same deal with rail stuff. You can find old cars for cheap (locomotives not so much, they tend to be worth a lot more than scrap value in spares). The catch is always the transport. I've seen this more than a time or two on rail enthusiast forums. Somebody buys an old caboose or boxcar to just drop behind their house for a couple grand.... and then discovers it's gonna cost at least 3-4x that to move even a few miles. Usually need a heavy duty low boy trailer (https://heavyhaulers.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/low...) and a fairly heavy duty crane at both ends.
3000 is the address not the price, which is "upon request".
That is the RABe 520. On the 2nd page of vehicles there are ABt trains with a listed price of CHF 3000.
The Swiss Federal Railways is a really interesting organizational model. It is run as government owened private corporation. it can issue it's own bonds and the swiss states (cantons) enter purchase contract negotiations with it for service.
The federal goverment beurocrats provide arms length objectives, and the coorporation figures out how to acheive them.
SBB profits do not feed into the government general fund, but must be used by the corporation to pay down its debt or invest in future infrastructure and services.
This is different from the swiss air resuce and ambulence fleet Rega, which is entirely private. It is funded by volunatry insurance paid by the swiss citizens and the annual premium is about 40 CHF for coverage.
Not quite, at least 50% of rescue costs will be paid via normal mandatory health insurance (just like when you need an ambulance car). Or 100% if you have a supplementary health insurance for transport.
For CHF 40 you can become a Rega patron and then they will usually pay whatever the insurance didn't cover, I think, but technically they don't have to.
And employee told me that SBB is the second biggest landlord in the country and real state is its most profitable branch. I cannot confirm it, though.
They are the 2nd biggest after Swisslife (I think?), but the profitability is kind of a bad metric because they are required to both fund their pension fund (36 thousand employees) and invest into infrastructure from this money. They make something like 250mio CHF before their commitments to infra + pensions and only have 30 million left over.
There are now a lot of complaints/demands that they should be required to make more affordable housing with their portfolio.
That's what I heard yes, that SwissLife was the biggest. I kind of like the idea, but at the same time it creates a lot of conflicts of interest.
Unfortunately no HO scale, so that's a pass for me.
If you're in the US and this excites you, you'll probably enjoy GSA auctions.
I wonder how usable are these trains for other European countries. Seems like a steal if any of them can fit your needs.
I came quite close to buying a tube carriage a couple of years ago but it was slightly too long for where I wanted to put it.
Some things are actually interesting and useable (as kinda normal human being, without the need for a new bridge or train)
Wow CA HSR should just buy these and put them down between the lanes of the 5.
Do they ship internationally
This makes me think of two things:
1: Everything can be bought and sold in this economy, and all the large and weird machines we pass by in our lives have whole production lifecycles where there are firms specialized in making them, and those that use them, and for money everything can be had.
2: In the 90s and 2000s in Switzerland the "warehouse sales" resulting from decommissioning companies and offices were rampant! There was a certain wealth and breadth and a minimum of equipment needed to do any work, and there was also a certain pride in using good equipment. The 90s/2000s switch to the neoliberal economy and getting by with less and less led to many mergers and obsoletions and the like and many beautiful products could be had. Some had also just ran their time. For example drawing tables from the pre CAD days. The world is grand and I'm nostalgic about the days of abundance and overengineering, but I don't mind they won't come back.
Holy fuck, they do have a bridge to sell you. Although it's only available from 2027-04-01. April fools?
It's available from 2027-04-01 to 2027-05-01, so basically deconstruction will be done during April. The bridge seems to be legit from 1876. Local news says they'd rather sell it to someone for cheap to support circular economy than throw it into the trash. https://www.tagesanzeiger.ch/sbb-verkauft-historische-brueck...
You might be able to make a good deal here, buy a bridge for 100 bucks.
But please note that the bridge will be available without the guard rail / fence, parts of the concrete might be missing, and the rust proofing needs a refresh!
Pretty sure that here in switzerland, demolition has to be as recyclable as possible, straight up selling the whole thing would be cost effective i guess.
I love how they clarify that it is used.
Do you think the Swiss have time for April fools?
Reminds me of this classic: https://youtu.be/tVo_wkxH9dU
Is it pickup only, or do they deliver as well?
When SBB has a bridge to sell you, you should pick it up in person.
When London Bridge was sold in the 1960s it was also on the buyer to pick it up from its original location and transport it to the US
I remember the day I decided to finally go see the London Bridge and I drove over it three times trying to find it.
> I drove over it three times
You tried driving in central London? Are you mad?
In case you’re not joking, London Bridge was purchased an American entrepreneur in 1968 and rebuilt in the city of Lake Havasu, Arizona. There is a persistent rumor that he thought he was buying the Tower Bridge, but in contemporaneous newspaper accounts he denied it. Nevertheless, that’s what I was expecting to see when I drove off I-40 that day—I envisioned the Tower Bridge in the middle of the desert connected to nothing which would have been something worth the trip. The actual bridge is not that much to look at.
I have to look this up each time I am reminded of it, to make sure it's not some absurd urban legend.
In the TV show "Auf Wiedersehen, Pet" the plot revolves around a gang of Geordie brickies who are contracted to dismantle an iconic bridge, The Tees Transport Bridge, from England and rebuild it for a wealthy buyer in Arizona
> to pick it up
That was necessary because it was falling down
They can likely arrange delivery for a fee, you would need to ask.
They are selling a bridge??
Why not? I'm pretty sure they know roundabout what it would cost to tear it down, so why not see if someone is willing to buy it because they think they can get the work done cheaper and make a profit off the raw material.
The opposite -- it said elsewhere they will accept a low offer if it means the historic bridge is preserved.
I'm not against it. It's just that it's the first time seeing a bridge being sold in my life.
There's an idiom in US english, "and if you believe that, I have a bridge to sell you", meant to imply that someone is gullible. It's usually what's being referred to when someone is talking about selling a bridge, and is a source of humour when someone actually sells a bridge.
It's in reference to the criminal exploits of confidence man George C Parker.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_C._Parker
thought these would be NFTs but i guess we're not in 2021