I was listening to Folsum Prison Blues and I reflected that while I know a thing or two about prisons, I’m woefully ignorant about trains.
Is it actually possible to own and operate a train? Could I buy a locomotive engine and a couple of rail cars and travel around the country? Do people do this? Where would you “park” a train when it’s not moving? Would it be legal for me to buy a bunch of railcars and start my own railroad company carrying freight or passengers? Do you need some kind of license to drive a train and how hard are they to get? Who owns the rail lines? Who controls the traffic on them? Do trains have to pay to use them?
Don’t know if anyone still does this but people used to own their own private Pullman cars which would be hauled around the country by the various railroad companies for some many dollars per mile. I’m pretty sure that you can still do it.
As far as owning your own railroad and trains and whatnot the answer is yes. A friend of mine is a volunteer with the Niles Canyon railroad group. They own a stretch of track (many miles) and several locomotives and passenger cars. They do all the train and track maintenance and they operate the trains. The holiday train is a lot of fun, it’s all decked out with Christmas lights, there’s wine, mulled cider, snacks, Santa Claus and so on.
People still do the Pullman car thing, though it’s rather rare. I remember seeing an article a couple years about a company that rented them out.
On railroads: basically, there are two railroad resources, moving stock (locomotives, freight cars, etc.) and the lines themselves. Some companies own both types of resources, others own just trains (like Amtrak). When you’re on a line that is not your own, you pay the company that owns it and are generally required to abide by their rules and their scheduling. Amtrak has a problem on some of their routes, where they are required to pull over and let freight trains pass. There is nothing to stop you from starting a company, buying a locomotive and some cars, and setting out; it would be a very complex enterprise logistically, but it could be done.
I’ve seen recent stories about how the hobby of restoring and running private luxury train cars has been growing recently. The term for them is “Private Varnish”, and there’s even a magazine by that name. Amtrak will pull your own for a price, as long as it passes a safety inspection.
There are a number of privately-owned railroads operating on small sections of their own track, essentially as museums or even as part of museums.
There are also many companies that own cars for moving freight; they pay railroad companies for the use of their rails and their engines. I once visited a steel processing plant that had specially designed cars for rolls of sheet steel – they used to own and maintain their own rolling stock, but they’ve outsourced that to the rail company.
This past spring I worked for several months at a large development at Union Station in downtown Los Angeles. Up behind the station (adjacent to the Metro Line tracks) there is a side yard with (apparently) privately owned rail cars. One of the Amtrak employees there told me that one of them is owned by Dan Akroyd and Jim Belushi.
If you wanted to see a totally privately operated railroad, a trip to Knott’s Berry Farm before 1996 (thats when the park became corporate) would have done the trick.
Walter Knott purchased three narrow gage steam locomotives from the Denver and Rio Grande railroad in Colorado. Two were C-19’s and one was a large version with a K designator. They were built in the 1880’s by Baldwin Iron Works and travel today over just about a mile of track. Included in the sale was a somewhat large quanity of rolling stock. Former Pullman coaches and a caboose along with several frieght cars. Most impressive is the private dining and sleeping cars used by the president of the railroad.
Today the Ghost Town and Calico Railroad at Knott’s Berry Farm is the longest running continually operated steam railroad in the world. The locomotives are priceless. And while Walt Disney had the same dream as Walter Knott to have his own private railroad, Disney’s was fabricated while Knott’s was the real deal. To this very day.
An old friend of mine, the late Livingston Lansing, actually bought a Shea locomotive, with the intent of starting up one of the tourist-attraction old-tyme short-haul train runs. He passed away before he could get the thing operational, but the locomotive, now named after him, is being restored, and plans to do what he intended are being pursued by other avid train fans. See the story here: http://www.newyorktrains.com/news01102001b.htm
[Railfan]This thread seems to have derailed (sorry) a bit, but JerH is on the right tr… gads, no I can’t. You’re not talking about private Pullman cars attached to scheduled services, or tourist steam locomotives a couple of miles long. you’re talking about getting hold of a hulking great modern diesel electric locomotive, a string of passenger cars, and driving the bugger yourself from Los Angeles to New York, right?
Well yes, you can. Sorta. It would simply involve being extremely rich, and having lots of time, expertise, and some serious logistical and business acumen (and also a love of trains or you’ll tire of it).
I will make so bold as to give the Australian example, as that is what I’m most familiar with, but it should translate well as both countries (and the UK and elsewhere) now run on the model of tracks and trains being owned by different entities. If you equate rail access fees with airport ones, you’ll see this is going to follow a similar pattern to flying one’s own large jetliner across the country a la John Travolta (possible, but costly and involved).
First, you’ll need yourself a train. These are reasonably expensive pieces of kit. You’d be looking at US$100k for a decent older second hand one of mainline size and performance (little yard switchers are cheaper, but unsuited to your needs), then you’ll need some passenger cars (these are cheaper but you’ll need a few of them for a respectable “train”).
Then, you’ll have to learn to drive the thing (and also hire one or two others who know how), and get your engineman’s ticket. There are various levels of this. Locomotive drivers usually start out shunting freight wagons in a yard somewhere, then progress to driving freight trains, then commuter trains, and finally main line express passenger trains. All these steps involve higher levels of accreditation. You’ll have to either convince a railroad company to hire you as a rookie off the street to provide you with these skills (unlikely as they tend to promote from within the company, or they hire people with semi truck driving experience), or you’ll have to pay a railroad some serious bucks to teach you. The aircraft analogy holds well here too. Start off on a Cessna, not a Boeing, and probably have to pay a lot to learn.
Oh yes, and you’d have to pass the appropriate medicals too.
After that, you’d need to approach the relevant transport safety authorities to register your private railroad company as what is known in Australian railway terms, an “Accredited Operator”. Every organisation in Australia that drives anything on rails needs this status, from CityRail (Sydney’s huge commuter network) to the Society of Section Car Operators (a bunch of pot-bellied railfans who drive those tiny little gasoline-powered workmen’s trikes across desert lines for fun). The registration fee alone to become an Accredited Operator is somewhere around thirty or forty thousand dollars (a year). And you won’t get the accreditation until you have satisfied the authorities that all your equipment is in extremely safe working order (inspected and certified trackworthy by the appropriate mechanical engineering body), that you have a safety plan in place (including a heirarchy of responsibility), and that a professionally drafted copy of this safety plan is loged with the authorities. All your train crew must be qualified and medically fit.
After you’ve done all that, you’ll need to negotiate with the other railroad companies to use their track.
Finally, you’ll need some fuel. And a word of warning (it can be gallons per mile, not the other way around).
Enjoy.
Here is a list of all of the remaining steam locomoties in California. Hereis another list of railroad museums around the world, many of which have their own functioning tracks.
The Loon Mountain ski area, in New Hampshire, has two base areas a mile or so apart. There is a real, honest-to-God, wood-fired, stream locomotive-drawn train that runs back and forth, carrying skiiers from one hill to the other.
