Planning Train Travel Excursions
on a Luxury Private Railcar
"You will always remember your private car trip
for a lifetime-but the memories will be lots better if you've planned
it well!"
Introduction:
Is there a connection between actress, playwright,
and Metropolitan Opera Guild founder Eleanor Robson, Triple Crown Winner
Man-O-War, New York Central 3 and planning a trip on a private railroad
car? Of course! Eleanor Robson married banker and ardent sailor and
horseman August Belmont in 1924 and commenced mingling with the Newport
and New York Vanderbilts as well as with the equestrian society associated
with Belmont Farms in New York and breeding farms in Kentucky. (She
named Man-O-War, the most famous race horse of the 20th Century.)
During her 100-year life span, she made many public
statements which found their way into anthologies of historically significant
quotations, including the wonderful comment that "To ride in a
private railroad car is not an acquired taste. One takes to it immediately."
Given the timing and her ties to the Vanderbilts, it is likely she was
referring to New York Central 3 when she said this!
This statement is equally true today. However, the
situation is quite different from her time, when the Pullman Company
operated private cars throughout the country on hundreds of different
railroads and perhaps thousands of different trains; when wealthy people
had retinues of service people to handle every detail concerning planning
a trip; and when the railroads themselves had thousands of employees
throughout the nation providing support services such as baggage transfer,
cleaning and pressing sleeping car linens, stocking dining cars with
a wide variety of fresh produce, providing fresh flowers at every major
terminal, etc., etc.
In order for today's private car trip to provide the
client with the flawless splendor of the past, a great deal of complicated
up - front planning is required, and there is no question but what the
process works best if it is a collaborative effort between client and
the private car's owner/operator. Even then, a good sense of humor is
required in some-thankfully rare - cases, because railroad travel involves
no more guarantees than travel by other modes of transportation. With
airplanes, the airport might be closed the day you want to travel; your
plane might be diverted, or a hurricane or blizzard might decide to
come to town. With trains, an accident ahead of you might stall all
trains; the same hurricane might flood the rails and force a detour,
or a delayed train might miss a connection.
Given uncontrollable circumstances, the main differences
is that you should enjoy yourself a lot more if such things happen while
on a private car. You'll have space to walk around, can go to the rest
room when you please, nobody will shout orders over the PA system, and
you won't have to beg for an extra bag of peanuts or be afraid that
either rations will run out or you might have to eat one more horrible
airline meal! You might have an adventure on a private railroad car,
but you should never have an ordeal!
Step 1: Determine
the size of your group and the type of car you desire
There are many different types of private cars, each
with different features: office cars like NYC 3 usually were built for
railroad executives and may have an illustrious history. Such cars usually
have open rear platforms, a lounge, dining room, and galley, plus three
to four staterooms. Night time capacity is usually limited to 4-8 passengers
and daytime capacity to 8-20, depending on car configuration. Higher
capacity cars include combination sleeper/lounge cars, full lounges,
full sleeping cars, coaches, dining cars and dome cars. Full lounges
and dining cars may accommodate up to 50 passengers. It is highly preferable
not to overcrowd cars, because overcrowding detracts from the travel
experience and makes it very difficult to provide proper service. Some
types of cars-especially dome cars-do not have low enough clearances
to visit New York because of the tunnels and the overhead electrical
wires.
Step 2: Determine
who will make the trip with you.
This is different from deciding the number of passengers
as a factor in selecting car type or in deciding how many people will
share the costs. This step involves selecting and prioritizing exactly
who will travel with you. We always suggest that you have several people
on a wait-list just in case some of the core group have last-minute
changes of plan. As part of selecting the passenger list, put great
emphasis on personal chemistry, flexibility and good humor! Railroad
cars are fun and they have more space for passengers to get away from
each other than a sailing yacht, but like yachts, they move, they bounce,
and they can be somewhat confining - especially on long trips. For some
people, this is all a wonderful part of the experience; for others,
it is not their cup of tea. Eliminate these "others" from
your guest list up-front, for they will affect the chemistry of the
trip, which in turn will affect the overall enjoyment of the other passengers.
Step 3:
Consider starting out with a short trip and decide whether you
want to sleep on board the car or at hotels or bed & breakfast inns
while in major cities.
We sometimes get inquiries from people who have never
ridden a train who want to start out by taking a 3-week cross-country
journey. We usually suggest they switch gears and start with a three-day
weekend in order to test the experience first. We also ask them to carefully
consider the pros and cons of sleeping on the car itself while parked
vs. staying in "shore facilities". While stopped in major
cities, the car will either be parked in the station or in a railroad
yard. It may be moved from time to time to switch it on and off of trains;
noise levels can be relatively high, especially when cars are using
their own generator for electricity or when trains come and park alongside
them with their locomotives running. Air conditioning may be periodically
disrupted if the car is moved and the generator may come on and off
as the car is "plugged" into shore power and subsequently
disconnected. Even station arrival and departure announcements can be
disturbing to some people. We've had two separate occasions where eight
people have slept on NYC 3 and the next morning, four of the guests
reported the "best sleep ever" while four others complained
they could scarcely sleep. This is a highly personal issue, but it requires
careful consideration as part of the initial planning process.
Step 4: Select
your exact travel dates and itinerary - and try to be flexible and creative
while doing so.
Some inquiries are flat-out impossible. Someone wants
to charter a car and travel to their college reunion in a town which
has not had any railroad service of any kind for 50 years! Other requests
are possible but impractical, except for deep-pockets clients who can
afford to travel on Amtrak or VIA trains to connections with a freight
railroad and then charter a locomotive and crew to create a private
train to get to the ultimate destination. The minimum cost for such
"off-passenger railroad" trips is about $ 3,000 above and
beyond the normal charter costs. But costs soar with mileage and time
- a freight railroad once quoted us $60,000 to haul NYC 3 only three
hundred miles during a 3-day period - and they made it clear that they
did not want the business!
Many car owners are asked to provide cost estimates
for detailed client-specified itineraries and in turn provide only the
exact information requested. We think it's critical to ask potential
clients enough questions to allow a determination if there is any flexibility
in either itinerary or travel dates, because a little flexibility might
allow significant reductions in trip costs. For instance, some people
inquire about a specific trip when their real goal is simply to enjoy
a fabulous vacation on a private rail car. Their initial itinerary may
involve long mileage and several nights where they are sleeping on the
car while missing all of the scenery, or it might be a trip without
much scenery at all. We might propose a trip with more scenery, less
mileage, day travel only, etc. which adds up to greater overall enjoyment
at greatly reduced cost. In other cases, we might demonstrate how it
is far cheaper to purchase a discounted weekend air fare to New York
in order to start the private rail car trip there rather than shipping
the car a long distance to the client's home town. We might also have
occasions where, due to other charter commitments, we know the car already
is scheduled to be close to the client on a specific date. If the client's
schedule is flexible, it might be possible to save thousands of dollars
by tying the two trips together. Bottom line: if you're flexible, you
can optimize the value of your trip.
Step 5:
Determine the level of service you desire.
We can honestly say that we have never eaten a meal
in NYC 3's dining room that wasn't a special, elegant occasion - partly
because we use our formal silverware and serve meals on Lenox China
at all times. These special meals include the beef Wellington prepared
by a chef from the Culinary Institute of America; the steak au poivre
prepared by the chef we flew over from Paris on the Concorde, and the
par baked combination pizza we purchased at Connie's Pizza in Chicago
and finished baking the next day in our oven.
Two typical meals aboard
the NYC3. One did involve pizza and blackberry pie;
the other foie gras
and french torte. You can't see the difference
in the photos, but everyone
is having a great time at both meals!
Some private cars offer only white glove service utilizing
on-board chefs and professional wait-staffs. We provide such service
with the best of them - in fact, for longer trips, most private cars
draw from a capable pool of the same chefs, who are located throughout
the country, but primarily in Florida and California. However, we also
offer less formal service up to and including self-catering. In this
latter case, we always have an on-board mechanic and car host to manage
the car itself, but the passengers themselves share in meal preparation
and cleanup. For some groups such as gourmet cooks and wine tasters,
organizing and preparing meals on board is part of their overall enjoyment
in the trip; for others, it's a way to save thousands of dollars while
still having the experience of a lifetime. And remember, when deciding
the service level you desire, that on most trips, the meals eaten on
the car are only a small percentage of the total meals consumed, because
the car is stopped at interesting locations en route where passengers
naturally want to dine out--especially in cities such as Montreal, Quebec,
New Orleans, etc. which are known for their cuisine. A chef is a wonderful
indulgence, and for many travelers, it's the only way to go - but it's
an expensive way to go if the trip involves an average of only one or
two meals per day on the car.
Step 6:
Select the car. This step actually involves a series of
decisions and analyses:
A.
Select a floor plan which fits your needs. Even amongst cars of the
same general type, there are substantial variations in floor plans,
in room layouts, size of rooms, quality and inequality of bedrooms in
the same car, size of the dining rooms, size and seating capacity in
the lounges, etc. Think about these variables as you consider which
car to select. NYC 3's layout is unique amongst business cars insofar as it has the highest
sleeping capacity, largest lounge capacity, great equality amongst staterooms, and it can accomodate
the largest number of sit-down diners at one meal seating.
B.
Try to see the car in person - or at least some color photographs. Private
cars vary greatly in décor and in "freshness". Some
people adore mahogany paneling; some think the same paneling yields
a dark and depressing interior. Some people go for bawdy Victorian;
others for art deco. For some reason, many people even have trouble
picturing the glamour of private car travel in general until they actually
see the car in person and can envision themselves in it. We once had
guests of a client who boarded the car in Boston. The guests had heard
stories of trips on the car and had seen both photographs and a videotape
- but when they came to dinner in Boston, they exclaimed "we had
no idea how wonderful this is - it's simply beyond our imagination!"
C. Check references
on the car and the operator. Please don't be scared off by this section
- I call it "Reality PV", where "PV" is the railroad
term for private cars, which were referred to as "Private Varnish"
in an earlier time because of all the varnished wood work in high level
executive cars.
Most cars have a bunch of satisfied clients, which
is natural considering that most trips go well and private car travel
is such a phenomenal experience. All cars are rigorously inspected by
Amtrak concerning safety matters, so from that standpoint, all cars
should be considered equal. But remember the basic difference between
private car travel and travel on scheduled airlines or regular passenger
trains: large transportation companies have hundreds of mechanics and
a wide variety of backup equipment which they can substitute whenever
operational or mechanical problems arise; owners of private cars hardly
ever have another car of the same style or quality to substitute and
they must resolve problems with a very limited support network, frequently
in the middle of a trip
So?.. the critical issue which separates private cars
is the reliability of their mechanical systems (generators, air conditioners,
toilets - the whole works!); the degree to which an owner has invested
in back-up equipment such as compressors, wheel sets, etc. which are
not normal off-the-shelf items; and the problem-solving creativity of
their owners.
Creative problem-solving is even critical prior to
a trip and relates to how effective a car owner is in negotiating with
railroads who initially veto a proposed travel plan. A short trip from,
let's say, New York to Montreal involves about as much planning work
as purchasing plumbing supplies on the Internet - i.e., it's not complicated,
but neither is it a complete "no-brainer". In contrast, a
transcontinental round trip, with stop-offs along the way can involve
about as much work as organizing a party to climb Mt. Everest! Even
providing an initial price quotation can take hours of analysis unless
the car has just completed a very similar trip.
D.
Compare prices - but don't flood the market with multiple requests for
quotes. Obtaining 2-3 comparative price quotations makes good sense,
but sending out a dozen email requests is simply unfair, given the amount
of work it takes to provide a quotation and the number of redundant
phone calls that would be required to the railroads which would supply
the transportation services. Most car operators can tell when they are
getting such a "shotgun" request and they respond by giving
a "quick and dirty" - and unnecessarily high - estimate.
Obviously, when comparing prices, be sure you are comparing
"apples and apples" rather than "apples and oranges".
Cars may have different daily rental fees, but owners may "count
the days" differently. There may be different charges in parking
days vs. travel days. The level of desired service greatly impacts price,
as do the charges to transport a car to the point where the passengers
will board. So, make sure you are dealing with all-inclusive prices
before you do any comparisons.
I'm not sure that it's accurate in the case of private
rail car travel to say that "you get what you pay for" because
of the underlying differences in private car ownership and the relative
inexperience of some new-comers to the field. Some cars are owned by
for-profit corporations that have sizeable overhead and clearly run
their cars as a business. Others are owned by individuals or not-for-profit
organizations with a major interest in historical preservation - their
primary goal is to realize enough revenues to keep historical cars well
maintained and in service and, hopefully, to fund other preservation
activities. Other cars are offered for charter immediately after major
renovations, where the owners hope that they can coast for a fairly
long period of time before they need major maintenance. Since the owners
really don't know the costs of operating a railroad car over the long
term, there is a tendency to under-price the use of such cars. And of
course, they may not have the same operational experience that others
have who've learned the ropes over time.
(We, ourselves, started in 1992 with the naive hope
that NYC 3 would need virtually no maintenance for its first 5 years,
since "everything was new". We learned the realities of the
harsh railroad environment almost immediately: A tree fell just in front
of our train and it made an emergency stop, sliding and "flattening"
six wheels on NYC 3 and many more on the rest of the train. We limped
home and were off to an FRA-certified wheel shop for the lathe to cut
and re-configure the wheels. Unexpected time out of service and a big-time
unplanned expense! We now have two sets of wheels in reserve, which
can be moved anywhere in the country for installation at any Amtrak
or VIA shop where the car might be stopped.)
What is fair to say is that, after working very hard
to get "apples and apples" cost comparisons, a potential client
may find that the cost estimates are fairly wide for a trip which appears
to be identical in quality. Don't let cost alone be the decision maker
unless you're satisfied the other factors are all about equal. Unusually
high quotes usually are not worth considering, but unusually low ones
should be considered suspect until you can learn the exact reason for
the differences.
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