>Amtrak’s all-sleeper California Zephyr ended service between Chicago and Emeryville, California, in 1997
Interesting statement since it still runs and you can book a private sleeper room for that route. Same with the coast starlight train that already runs the SF-LA route with sleeper cars.
Note the weasel word all-sleeper. They run a non-sleeper passenger also car on both of the above for those getting off at the smaller stations on the way so that’s how they can claim those services don’t exist when you can just go book them online right now.
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)
I've done a long sleeper solo from NY -> Chicago (it's just overnight, so not as long). It was fantastic, but I got reverse seasick after getting off the train. Trying to sit on a bar stool was a challenge for about 36 hours after my inner ear had got so accustomed to the rocking of the train itself.
"They run a non-sleeper passenger also car on both of the above for those getting off at the smaller stations on the way..."
...Or for people who just don't but the sleeper ticket but go any distance. I went coast to coast with regular seat tickets once. It's better than Greyhound, and people do long hauls with them daily.
Unfortunately this is unlikely to be successful. There is just no way you can run a reliable overnight passenger service on the intercity rail infrastructure of the US.
The track is mostly single track and heavily used by freight (where a few hours delay isn't the end of the world). Multi hour delays are extremely common and even with it being overnight, if you set off at say 11pm and aim to arrive at 8am, a 3 hour delay could see you arriving at 11am and your VIP passengers missing all their business meetings. They won't return!
FWIW I don't think Europe's push to overnight rail trains will be very effective either. It doesn't work well with overnight maintenance windows, and the yield per train is extremely low (100 passengers in 50 'rooms' vs 1000 normal seating passengers dictate a 10x ticket price). Also is extremely complex in Europe with many different signalling/communication systems, traction systems, etc.
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.
As somebody who is working on exactly this problem, I’d say the problem can be solved technically if one can get a high density of passengers, while providing privacy and comfort.
Most of the sleeper startups basically just work with renderings, we work with iterating on full sized mock ups. We did ergonomics/market testing with hundreds of test users. We have evidence that with the right cabin technology, you can be profitable, even produce a margin, and significantly disrupt air travel.
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.
Yes but it's clearly not competitive because it has such a tiny marketshare and runs at a giant loss. And that's in Europe with exceptional infrastructure compared to the US (a lot of 4 track lines, with everything at least double track, allowing freight to get out the way).
Northeast Regional (including Acela) is also very successful. But you may not consider that long distance. In fact, I thought most of the Amtrak's profits came from that. There are a couple other city pairs that do reasonably but, yes, mostly not.
I would be surprised if it has even 1% marketshare on the routes they are on (vs driving, coach, day trains and flights.
For example; in the UK on London -> Edinburgh, Caledonian Sleeper has on average 250 passengers per day (but this is the entire route - not just london to edinburgh). Given there is roughly ~2tph throughout the day for about 16 hours a day, each with ~1000 seats (with very high load factors), that's about 30,000 passengers/day on the "day" train. Probably roughly that again flying. Plus driving and coaches and it is absolutely tiny.
Like, where? I lived in four EU countries and travelled to most of member states. I only heard of Austrian sleeper and some luxury Swiss expertise. Never heard anyone taking a sleeper in the modern times. Moscow-Paris train used to be a thing, but that’s in the past.
I live in europe and have taken overnight trains to various destinations and they've all been nice - quiet, smooth, good food, decent nights sleep...
I've also taken them in Egypt and Morocco and they were loud, jerky, and smelly...
When I see pictures of trains in the USA they look very old and look like the locomotive is actually pulling the train vs providing electricity to each individual car's motors. This was the problem in Egypt and Morocco - the engine accelerate and all of the cars get jerked and when it slows down all of the cars get jerked again, making it hard to sleep.
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.
For those who don't know: The "roomette" is still your own room, with two beds that are couches during the day, and the porter converts them and makes your bed for you. Roomettes also have a toilet in them, so if you're with someone else they may be going to the dining car for a few minutes here and there. The car itself has a shower in it as well that shared by everyone on that car. It's really fun taking a shower at 80mph.
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!
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.
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. :)
Actually there used to be a lot more electrified track in the US but the freight railroads tore it out to reduce capital ratios and allow tall-stacking containers.
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.
99 % of Class I freight locomotives in North America are diesel-electrics where a diesel genset provides power to electric motors on the locomotive. There are - to a rounding error - no freight locomotives provide electrical power to motors on the rake.
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.
> I imagine Europe probably has more semis on the road transporting cargo.
They absolutely do: unlike the US where more freight is transported by rail than truck, the opposite is true in Europe. And personally I think this is the right tradeoff. The efficiencies of rail over road vehicles scale up with mass. The US has 200 car freight trains hauling 400 shipping containers at a time; compared to 400 semi trucks that’s a massive improvement. European freight rail isn’t even capable of this level of scale; their railroads have maximum train lengths well below the US average.
Freight is also much less fussy than passengers when it comes to scheduling, comfort, or speed, which is why this level of scale is possible for freight rail and not passenger rail.
Wait, so is this first-class rail service for who? For those whose private jets are in the shop?
I instead so look forward to just making the existing services more convenient/affordable where you would prefer taking the train — look forward to it even. I still have a memory of walking through a train car at night (going from Kansas City to Chicago) when I was 4 or 5 years old. Passengers sitting, sipping cocktails in the observation car like a scene out of "The Thin Man".
I've taken the California Zephyr to Omaha a few times over the past decade. It was okay. But expensive as I recall.
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.
> Train stations are usually closer to downtown than airports
This is handy if your destination is in downtown (and your origin is convenient to downtown as well), but if not, you'll need to find other ground transportation. If a rental car makes sense, they're typically easy to find near airports, but a lot of train stations don't offer them. Long term parking is hit or miss, too.
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.
That’s where, theoretically at least, the “sleeper” part comes in. Travel great distances while you sleep and save the money on a hotel room.
If the conditions were good enough I’d be perfectly happy to be on a train e.g. 6pm-6am rather than arriving at an airport at 6pm, doing security, baggage etc etc, taxiing to the center of a city then checking into a hotel late. But every time I look the pricing for that is way out of whack.
That sounds like a great argument in favor of making sleeper trains a luxury experience. That way the train ride can be a destination in itself. The first stop on your holiday, rather than just a means to get to your holiday destination.
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.
Exactly. This reads like a puff piece. If they were serious about this and their timetables, they would’ve already rented a train set from Europe somewhere and have it running on our rails.
LA to SF doesn't make a lot of sense to me as an overnight route. Suppose you leave at 10pm. You get in at maybe 4am, maybe you got 5 hours of sleep, and have to wait 12 hours to check into a hotel...?
6 hours is maybe justifiable for the comfort compared to getting to LAX in traffic, checking in for a flight, then crawling out of SFO... why not run it during the day? Save the sleeper portion for getting to PDX and Seattle?
Thats not how it works normally. The train doesn't get in till around 7-8am. Often sleeper trains will park of a few hours overnight. So you'll be able to sleep for around 8 hours.
The idea is you get in around 8am (hopefully in station near the middle of the city) and then you can get on with you days activities immediately.
Just looked up tickets on the Coast Starlight, Emeryville to LA is a $790 round trip in a standard bedroom. Assuming a "luxury" train service is at least double that, you could hire a private driver for less than this and be there in less than half the time... or take a $150 flight. Nothing will change about the economics of rail in this country until we actually make the investment in having legitimate service.
I'm surprised there isn't already a west-coast Auto Train like was briefly mentioned. The east coast one (used to bypass I-95 traffic) is often sold-out. Drop off your car for loading, take your carry-on to your seat or cabin, arrive the next morning.
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?
I agree with the other posters that 200 km is not very far for Americans (My trips to the dentist are 294 km each way).
So far as self-loading - for comparison, I believe the Eurostar loads cars on a single-level. The Auto Train loads cars into two-levels where the decking is open mesh and not safe for the public to walk on. The published time is a little misleading - that's when you have to check-in. Departure time is about 90 minutes after last check-in. You could have nearly completed a 200 km drive in that time, so something like the Auto Train is only useful for much longer distances (it currently runs ~1400 km)
Amtrak has two sizes of cars. The single-level cars have to be used in the Northeast because of the lower clearances of tunnels & bridges (legacy infrastructure...) The bi-level Superliners can be used everywhere else. The Auto Train cars are bi-level height and cannot operate any further north than they presently do.
That’s short enough distance that most Americans would regard it as a day trip: wake up, go, do whatever, come back. And I do mean 200 km each way.
I have, at the more extreme end, done not just 400 but 1250 km in one day as a round trip. A single 200 km segment is nothing. I go 300 km each way for a weekend break!
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.
Now that airports are crowded with peasants thanks to low-cost companies, and private jets are still a bit too expansive, the new hype is to stay in a moving hotel?
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.
Readit News
Interesting statement since it still runs and you can book a private sleeper room for that route. Same with the coast starlight train that already runs the SF-LA route with sleeper cars.
Note the weasel word all-sleeper. They run a non-sleeper passenger also car on both of the above for those getting off at the smaller stations on the way so that’s how they can claim those services don’t exist when you can just go book them online right now.
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)
...Or for people who just don't but the sleeper ticket but go any distance. I went coast to coast with regular seat tickets once. It's better than Greyhound, and people do long hauls with them daily.
The track is mostly single track and heavily used by freight (where a few hours delay isn't the end of the world). Multi hour delays are extremely common and even with it being overnight, if you set off at say 11pm and aim to arrive at 8am, a 3 hour delay could see you arriving at 11am and your VIP passengers missing all their business meetings. They won't return!
FWIW I don't think Europe's push to overnight rail trains will be very effective either. It doesn't work well with overnight maintenance windows, and the yield per train is extremely low (100 passengers in 50 'rooms' vs 1000 normal seating passengers dictate a 10x ticket price). Also is extremely complex in Europe with many different signalling/communication systems, traction systems, etc.
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.
Most of the sleeper startups basically just work with renderings, we work with iterating on full sized mock ups. We did ergonomics/market testing with hundreds of test users. We have evidence that with the right cabin technology, you can be profitable, even produce a margin, and significantly disrupt air travel.
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.
Local and short distance can be profitable.
For example; in the UK on London -> Edinburgh, Caledonian Sleeper has on average 250 passengers per day (but this is the entire route - not just london to edinburgh). Given there is roughly ~2tph throughout the day for about 16 hours a day, each with ~1000 seats (with very high load factors), that's about 30,000 passengers/day on the "day" train. Probably roughly that again flying. Plus driving and coaches and it is absolutely tiny.
I've also taken them in Egypt and Morocco and they were loud, jerky, and smelly...
When I see pictures of trains in the USA they look very old and look like the locomotive is actually pulling the train vs providing electricity to each individual car's motors. This was the problem in Egypt and Morocco - the engine accelerate and all of the cars get jerked and when it slows down all of the cars get jerked again, making it hard to sleep.
See also: https://thebeaverton.com/2019/08/european-relatives-visiting...
Even so, the passenger trains don't make abrupt starts/stops like the freight trains do, because people would complain. :)
Common misconception. Amtrak actually has preference on US rails, but the track operators frequently ignore the law.
It's been the law since 1973.
https://www.progressiverailroading.com/federal_legislation_r...
They absolutely do: unlike the US where more freight is transported by rail than truck, the opposite is true in Europe. And personally I think this is the right tradeoff. The efficiencies of rail over road vehicles scale up with mass. The US has 200 car freight trains hauling 400 shipping containers at a time; compared to 400 semi trucks that’s a massive improvement. European freight rail isn’t even capable of this level of scale; their railroads have maximum train lengths well below the US average.
Freight is also much less fussy than passengers when it comes to scheduling, comfort, or speed, which is why this level of scale is possible for freight rail and not passenger rail.
I instead so look forward to just making the existing services more convenient/affordable where you would prefer taking the train — look forward to it even. I still have a memory of walking through a train car at night (going from Kansas City to Chicago) when I was 4 or 5 years old. Passengers sitting, sipping cocktails in the observation car like a scene out of "The Thin Man".
I've taken the California Zephyr to Omaha a few times over the past decade. It was okay. But expensive as I recall.
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.
This is handy if your destination is in downtown (and your origin is convenient to downtown as well), but if not, you'll need to find other ground transportation. If a rental car makes sense, they're typically easy to find near airports, but a lot of train stations don't offer them. Long term parking is hit or miss, too.
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.
If the conditions were good enough I’d be perfectly happy to be on a train e.g. 6pm-6am rather than arriving at an airport at 6pm, doing security, baggage etc etc, taxiing to the center of a city then checking into a hotel late. But every time I look the pricing for that is way out of whack.
For all the VCs whose money they are going to burn.
6 hours is maybe justifiable for the comfort compared to getting to LAX in traffic, checking in for a flight, then crawling out of SFO... why not run it during the day? Save the sleeper portion for getting to PDX and Seattle?
Also, is the spa going to be open at 1am?
The idea is you get in around 8am (hopefully in station near the middle of the city) and then you can get on with you days activities immediately.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29KW3OAPrD4
The american trains seems too high for Europe though. Would it work for vans and RVs too?
So far as self-loading - for comparison, I believe the Eurostar loads cars on a single-level. The Auto Train loads cars into two-levels where the decking is open mesh and not safe for the public to walk on. The published time is a little misleading - that's when you have to check-in. Departure time is about 90 minutes after last check-in. You could have nearly completed a 200 km drive in that time, so something like the Auto Train is only useful for much longer distances (it currently runs ~1400 km)
Amtrak has two sizes of cars. The single-level cars have to be used in the Northeast because of the lower clearances of tunnels & bridges (legacy infrastructure...) The bi-level Superliners can be used everywhere else. The Auto Train cars are bi-level height and cannot operate any further north than they presently do.
That’s short enough distance that most Americans would regard it as a day trip: wake up, go, do whatever, come back. And I do mean 200 km each way.
I have, at the more extreme end, done not just 400 but 1250 km in one day as a round trip. A single 200 km segment is nothing. I go 300 km each way for a weekend break!
Unless you are on a German Autobahn: drive on, go left lane, floor the gas pedal, and you cross that distance in an hour (or less).
Now that airports are crowded with peasants thanks to low-cost companies, and private jets are still a bit too expansive, the new hype is to stay in a moving hotel?
They are launching something similar in France https://legrandtour.com/en
And private jets are more than a "bit" more expensive for most people. Multiples of first/business class even for a group.