Those prices seem in reach for a dream vacation that you save up for. You can rent railcars that are already approved. buying a custom rail car is possible but likely out of budget for normal people.

The nice ones are almost all old business cars. The business car was used by the railroads for senior executives to move around their systems, and hold meetings.. usually contain a couple of executive bedrooms, a staff bedroom (they typically carried a cook and a steward, although the roles were sometimes combined). The rear half or so of the car is an open plan lounge/meeting room.

The cars were usually built by a company like Pullman, usually from a time frame of roughly 1900 +/- 20 years.

Huge money pits, with tons of (often quite ornate) wood m, etc. then add the cost of restoration (again almost all of these cars are 100+ years old), retrofitting modern electrical systems, air conditioning. Could easily be a million dollar project.

so basically all the problems of buying a castle or old chateau, but on wheels.

Kind of. You don't have to worry about foundations, or sewer lines or frost heaves or masonry. So there are advantages.

But I mean, just look what a nice one is like inside.

Something like this one (Which I've actually been in)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJ9TscDfHMQ

More like an old Winnebago that wasn't built to a price point (which is both good and bad)

Not really, you just need to get more people. The fanciest car holds 8, other cars hold 20 to 70 people. So if you divide the price the people it's not that bad.

The first time I realized this kind of thing was a tour of a baseball stadium. They showed us the suites. I forgot how much they cost but if you got a bunch of friends together to fill one then they were in the same range as medium good seats.

Example: https://www.mlb.com/padres/tickets/premium/suites Various prices, one is $4260 for 20 people. That's $213 each. Is that rich person's thing?

It wasn't clear what the private car costs but, just guessing the Train Jam did this. https://trainjam.com/faq You can see the prices for 52hr ride.

Every rail car is a private rail car, if "shared with 20 to 70 people" is your definition of private :)

If the 20 people are close family then …. Yeah?

In my experience the people who can afford everything are often the ones looking to pay the least at all times.

You don’t get rich by writing checks. Except pg.

The people doing this at this point are mostly rich rail enthusiasts. No one is doing this to actually get around. The most popular routes are the more scenic ones, like through the mountains. They’re not hitching a car into the Acela to go from NYC to Boston.

You do see these cars up in South Station occasionally attached to the Regional. Ive always assumed more of a Boston -> DC routing for those. Entertain some guests, get business done etc.

I think the Cardinal is a popular route for a lot of those guys. It’s the scenic way to Chicago. Instead of going from NYC and sort of hugging the south shore of the Great Lakes, it goes south to Dc, then to Charlottesville and over the old C&O route over the Appalachians through Charleston, WV and on along the Ohio river to Cincinnati and then eventually Chicago.

Wow, that actually sounds pretty great

And rail car enthusiast associations, which usually consist of passionate but not very rich people - they will pool money together to afford a trip like this every now and then, so usually they'll go "ok we got 20k in membership fees this quarter, where can we go with this money" - so yeah, it will absolutely matter to them.

Tangentially, someone I knew from school worked at the Franklin Mint for a while and he told me their collectibles customers were mostly moderately well-off empty-nesters who now had this money to spend but really weren't into second homes or fancy cars.

I'm not sure that is true — I mean the rich part is true, but not necessarily the rail enthusiast part. One of the times we took the California Zephyr there was a private car on the end that I understood to be some sports-team tycoon who was more or less afraid of flying.

Depending on how long ago it was, it could've been John Madden. Not a tycoon, but the first guy that pops into my head re: sports who refused to fly.

Didn't he famously have a very fancy bus?

He did, the "Madden Cruiser": https://www.profootballhof.com/news/2018/07/original-madden-...

He was known for taking trains as well, e.g. he was a frequent Amtrak rider: https://vault.si.com/vault/1980/11/17/clear-the-tracks-for-b...

There are definitely well-off people who are afraid of flying. My understanding is that Isaac Asimov was also one though I can't provide a reference.

many of them got rich by not spending anything and investing what they had. Those habits don't die when you have money.

most of them got rich by being born rich

There are still a large minority who didn't.

This is gonna end soon, if it hasn't already.

Many wealthy folks rent out most of the houses and yachts they own. It looks to be similar in the rail game.

A couple links deep from TFA, I found the daily charter price is $7500 minimum.

https://www.aaprco.com/charter-a-private-car

This is a cliche. Those rich enough that don't have to ask oftentimes pay less than those who are not rich enough.