Freight rail fueled a new luxury overnight train startup

Btw for anyone curious the zephyr between emeryville and denver is up there for one of the most scenic routes in the world.

Along the inlets of the bay, up the sierra nevadas, through the great basin, through the moab desert with mesas either side and then into the rocky mountains winding along cliff tops. It goes through the salt flats and salt lake city at night but the daytime views either side of that one night are incredible and make the train trip entirely worthwhile. A great way to experience a sleeper car, you’ll see why people do it rather than fly and a great experience all round.

Don’t bother with the denver to chicago leg though unless you really like corn fields (chicago is absolutely worthwhile visiting but probably not worth the extra night on the train when you can fly)

European sleeper trains are usually also powered by locomotives, and the individual cars don't have motors, so I think the jerk motion you've experienced is caused my poor couplings or something else.

Quality of the rails makes a big difference, take the train from Ukraine to Poland and it's suddenly super smooth once you cross over into the EU

I took a train from New York to Miami last October in a "roomette". Sleep was fine, better than I get on UK sleepers. Food was amazingly good.

Even with a traditional diesel, you can get a good ride. I took the sleeper train from Istanbul to Pamukalle (Laodicea), and even over the single track sections it was smooth. It might be down to the driver planning ahead - this one was definitely proud of his work!

There's not a lot of electrified track in the US. The distances are just too great and our railroads are freight-first, passengers second (the opposite of Europe).

Even so, the passenger trains don't make abrupt starts/stops like the freight trains do, because people would complain. :)

You’re talking about EMU/DMUs versus locomotives. Higher-speed travel is less efficient with an MU than with a locomotive-pulled train. Higher-speed is important when North America is so large.

See also: https://thebeaverton.com/2019/08/european-relatives-visiting...

Many American freight trains are diesel-electric where the locomotive supplies electricity but the motors are distributed. Notably train routes in Western Europe tend to be electrified and get all their energy from a catenary.

As others have said. Freight is first in the US. I imagine Europe probably has more semis on the road transporting cargo. Except for special routes, passenger travel by rail is only for those dedicated individuals.

Overnight trains are awesome. Yes, they move slowly compared to planes, but you may actually waste less time using them, think of them as moving hotels. You don't travel to the hotel, the hotel travels for you!

The idea is that you get to the station in the evening, board the train, then on the train, you eat, relax or do some work depending on how busy you are, take a shower, and sleep and in the morning, you are at your destination. Train stations are usually closer to downtown than airports and you spend less time with security, check-in, etc... another advantage. If you account for the hotel stay you saved, net travel time can be effectively zero.

And that's just the "transportation" aspect. In addition, train cruises are a thing. Not as big as cruise ships, but that's the same idea.

If I had first-class air travel money, which is probably their target demographic, I would definitely ride such a train.

> But expensive as I recall

And slow. For many ‘muricans, they only get two weeks of vacation, and it is very rare that their employer will allow them to take all of that time at once. I don’t care what you get as a cushy HN reader, your situation is not most ‘murican. When you only get to take a couple of days, you don’t want to be spending it in transit. As it is now, air travel pretty much takes up a full day with arriving x hours early, delays, etc.

I think you underestimate just how much more expensive a private plane is :D

Tourists. Luxury multi-day trains are a pretty common concept around the world. This is also why they are highlighting that the price will be comparable to a flight + hotel stay.

> Wait, so is this first-class rail service for who? For those whose private jets are in the shop?

For all the VCs whose money they are going to burn.

Elderly European tourists seems to be the market from my experience on via rail in Canada

Have taken this in Europe, was really nice, and I consider this quite competitive with inter-European airlines:

It saves a lot of time, because you can use central train stations instead of transfering to/from the airport, and you depart late in the evening (get full use out of the departure day) and arrive somewhat early in the morning (don't lose much of that day, either).

So it does not have to be cheaper than an inland flight, it just has to be competitive with flight + 2x transfer + hotel, and while it might be slightly less comfortabel than a hotel room, you avoid airport transfer and -security, which is nice.

Agree with all of this. The ridership might be there but I doubt the business case is - and this is true in Europe as well. As far as I can tell sleeper services generally are not money-makers, and are subsidized by regular passenger service.

Which may be a desirable policy outcome for state rail agencies - but this is a private venture!

I think cost is an under-appreciated aspect of this. You're carrying 5-10x fewer passengers per-train, at greater cost (the cost of turning over a stateroom is many times higher than cleaning a coach seat, along with linens, food, etc.), on very expensive custom equipment that isn't suitable for other uses.

There seem to be two "major" (really heavy scare quotes here) players in the US private sleeper service scene. Dreamstar IMO is the more promising of the two (heavy caveat that this is relative to each other, not absolute odds) by realizing the only way to make the economics work is the ability to charge $$$$$ for tickets.

The other (Lunatrain) IMO is just out to lunch, with a claimed focus on affordability. None of the above leads to affordable tickets.

It's quite successful in Europe

This should be developed more indeed: doing anything more than 200km by road is annoying and tiring. The solution in the video seems great with cars and passengers on the same train, if the "loading" time is not long. Why don't people drive their cars themselves in and then go to the passenger spaces?

The american trains seems too high for Europe though. Would it work for vans and RVs too?

There's a fair bit of NY to Florida traffic where people need to drive once they arrive and often do fairly long stays when they do. (And it's a doable drive but fairly lengthy.) Not sure you have quite the same dynamic in California.

Assumption is probably that you're willing to pay (a reasonable amount) for comfort, a day or two of extra travel time isn't a big deal, you find advantages for city to city center travel (though you don't actually get that with San Francisco), and don't really like driving long distances.

And private jets are more than a "bit" more expensive for most people. Multiples of first/business class even for a group.

LA-SF is nearly 500 MILES. That's close to 800km and driving through LA makes it feel like 1000km. If the sleeper would extend on to San Diego, this would be a sweet item for me.

Best is if you combine the private office during the day with the sleeping cabin at night. Bonus points if you can get that at high density.

Check out the ski train from Denver to Winter Park.

And... there's convenient car rental at arrival which will almost certainly be needed in LA. And the price will almost certainly be in the hundreds of dollars. Without looking it up, I'm assuming the price for a non-sleeper is over $100 today.

USD 80 values your time at 0, one extra night in a hotel at 0, the wear and tear on your car at 0, parking at 0…