No more charter trains

SouthernRailway wrote:

DutchRailnut wrote:could ,,, yes
would,,, maybe
willingly ,, no

Even if the Class Is and commuter RRs are paid enough to make it worthwhile?

I know how it is to take on small projects at work for small amounts of pay--usually not worthwhile-- but couldn't the Class Is and commuter RRs work out something with a group of private car owners- maybe charge an up-front fee and then have some pre-set arrangements for private car transportation, and charge a premium for it?

The thing is, the Class 1's just aren't interested in such moves. They would see them as interruptions to their real job. Most of them only reluctantly work with Amtrak and commuter rail authorities (e.g. CN).
They'd probably would do if paid a king's ransom, but the price would be so high that the car owners couldn't afford it.
Commuter lines might run such excursions, but, of course, they wouldn't go very far.

Someone I know road in a private car on the back of a freight sometime in the last 20 years. Does this still happen? Did it ever happen much? He said the ride was pretty rough at first because no one had told the engineer there were passengers on the end of the train but then he started handling the slack differently (?).

Surprised such was placed on the rear, Mr. Arborway.

On the MILW, "Business" Cars were always placed on the head.

mtuandrew wrote:

Railjunkie wrote:Just pulled two off the rear of 48 today that makes 4 in Albany now. I was talking to one of the owners and he just bought 4 more cars. He didnt seem worried about this edict from Mr Anderson. Felt it would disappear in a short matter of time.

That’s oddly self-assured. Any reason you can share, or just blind hope and bluster?

I dont know he is in his 30s and now owns 6 cars. Four of which he just purchased and are going through a complete over haul down south. Perhaps its just a case of money to burn. People with $$$ generally dont make blind purchases.

Thanks, Mr. Norman. That makes sense.

I realize I didn't ask everything I meant to ask. I was interested in the idea of a private car on the back of a freight, but I was also wondering if Class I's, or any railroads, really, carry private cars with passengers in them on freights at all. The discussion of freight railroads here seems to be about hiring freight railroads to run special trains with one or more private cars, so I got to wondering if they would handle them in freights.

I guess there are at least three questions in this thread:
If Amtrak won't provide equipment and crews for specials, charters, etc., will any other railroad provide them? And that really means, is there anyone who can provide equipment and crews (or provide equipment and convince host railroads to provide crews for the right price) to run charter trains on railroads that do not already run passenger specials themselves, or over multiple railroads? (Amtrak doesn't have the automatic right to run those charters on every line it runs on, does it? And certainly when Amtrak operates a charter or a private car special on lines that it does not normally run on, that is something that has to be negotiated, because Amtrak can't just run anywhere. I assume that there is a good chance class I's that already operate specials of their own from time to time, like Union Pacific, agreeing to operate charters in their own equipment on their own lines for the right price--if some group wanted to pay enough for a charter from Denver to Salt Lake, wouldn't UP probably at least consider it? And we obviously not talking about tourist railroads and short lines that already have a price list for renting special trains.) MBRRE fall tours have sometimes been in MBTA cars, at least, for example.

If Amtrak won't provide power and crews for special trains of many private cars -- like the private car owners specials and the various special tours arranged by commercial operators for paying passengers -- will any other railroads provide them and, if so, where will they be able to operate?

If Amtrak won't move private cars on its regular trains -- or will only move them from a smaller number of stations than before -- will any other railroad move those cars with passengers on them in some way or other?

-- Sam from Boston and Terre Haute, "special subject the bleeding obvious". Hope you don't mind me summarizing.

As far as I'm aware, Amtrak is not refusing to haul private cars. They are simply refusing to switch them on/off trains at intermediate stops, ones with less than 30 minute dwell time. While that may restrict one's options compared to the old policy, is it really that bad? It's not like Amtrak could drop one's PV at a random intermediate station. Most stations do not have sidings or house tracks, nor a switcher.

So, right now, we think if there's a route endpoint or a standard station dwell of 30 minutes or greater, Amtrak will handle PV.

SO, to my thinking, that means...

Chicago
LA
Emeryville
San Diego
Seattle
St Louis...maybe
Kansas City
Quincy, IL
New Orleans

Someplace in Florida

Where else?

Spokane, Denver, San Antonio, Milwaukee, MSP, Kansas City, Dallas and Fort Worth (carded for 20 but maybe?) Pittsburgh, Philly, Boston, Pontiac, Grand Rapids, Portland, STL, Carbondale, Indy, Savannah, the list is really pretty long, given most of the intermediate stations were no-go already (you can't leave a car in the middle of Main 1 in South Bend...)

I think this means the recent no-specials edict is more about the hassle of moving 30 revenue cars to one point, then moving them home, for trains like the Fall Excursion. That has to be a giant hassle. So is dropping PV's in Ann Arbor, which I've seen done before.

Albany we do it all the time in one day out the next. When the yard tracks were re done they added ground power and a paved area for detraining. We also store them here also.

What I do see is a major rebasing of PV to locations near these specific termini.

SouthernRailway wrote:I'm not clear on why Class Is and commuter lines can't just pair up and offer to run a locomotive from Point A to Point B (wherever private car owners want) and attach private cars to it. E.g., if a private car owner wants to go from NY Penn to Birmingham, couldn't NJ Transit/MARC/Norfolk Southern haul it?

If Amtrak says no, then...

NJ Transit/SEPTA/MARC: Negative. It's still on Amtrak's rail. Not only that, MARC doesn't operate their vehicles on Amtrak's line. It's contracted out to... Amtrak.

Now if you could get hooked up with CSX, maybe... but CSX got out of passenger rail and MARC had to hire Bombardier to run the non-Penn lines on CSX track. So it's leaning more towards no.

You're stuck!

Believe most T&E crew change points that are also Fuel/Watering points are still OK,ABQ NM and possibly Tucson Az.

No argument from me, Tadman. I think you are right about what the real change is, and I also think that change is basically OK.

John_Perkowski wrote:What I do see is a major rebasing of PV to locations near these specific termini.

Good insight. At one time Amtrak was known to go fetch PV's off sidings on the NEC and Lord knows what a complex move it would be to get a PV from somewhere like a shortline to a terminal point. At this point, either the PV will probably be stored in the terminal, which is hugely expensive, or the freight carriers will forward them to the endpoint yards like 14th street or Albany, but I could be wrong about that.

I don't doubt the freight carriers are relieved that, in the case of intermediate stops w/ house tracks (Lawrence Kansas for example) that the main won't be tied up for a switching operation anymore. Granted the Topeka branch is pretty sleepy, but there are other intermediates with house tracks on busy mains.

Tadman wrote:I think this means the recent no-specials edict is more about the hassle of moving 30 revenue cars to one point, then moving them home, for trains like the Fall Excursion. That has to be a giant hassle. So is dropping PV's in Ann Arbor, which I've seen done before.

Again, I don't see how. The train left from New York, where the consists they used would have been anyway. They did not find 30 cars, they put some number of consists together. I'm not sure if they had something special they needed to do to get the gift shop car and the P42 where it needed to be, but that stuff is kept together anyway, right?