Somebody should Airbnb this. Who wouldn't want the opportunity to cross the United States in their own personal rail car? No airports to deal with, no impersonal hotels. Sounds like a retirement dream.
I took my dad on the Via Candian (1) from Toronto to Vancuver. We had an absolutely amazing exeperience. You see Canada in a very unique way, meet interesting people, and time does this interesting thing when you're on a train for 4 nights. Highly recommend it (If you get your own sleeper car!).
I did the whole country on that (although didn't do a sleeper car).
Tips: If you're gonna get off and on, especially in Western Canada, know when the next train leaves. Sometimes it's 4 days in between. Also don't get off the train in Thunder Bay, no matter what they say, you don't have time to get to the Subway sandwich shop and back.
I see a sleeper cabin for two listed for $1558 (discounted from $2428 reg price) and there are often even steeper discounts available. [0]
You can get an "upper berth" sleeping ticket with meals for $968.50. Considering that's a 4-day sightseeing trip compared to a 4-5hr flight I don't think a $300 premium is outrageous, do you?
In fact, the cheapest business class ticket one-way I can find is $871. That makes the difference less than $100!
(In fact I am amazed that the prices are in fact comparable between a 4-day train trip and a 5-hr flight. Definitely something I didn't expect.)
I would not recommend the upper berths. You have just a bed behind a curtain. For the trip with my dad I got us each a single sleeper cabin. I think it was $1,500 each, and having your own little room to go to was great to have.
The trip was for my dads 70th birthday, and a long promised gift (He took me to Italy, Croatia and Bosnia where we almost got killed and the deal was I’d take him on a trip) so it was worth spending a little extra for the comfort.
How much are you willing to pay? There are (a very few) luxury train trips in Europe. Maybe $5-10K NY-SF or NY-SEA would cover it in the US? It's totally doable if there were a market; basically upscale the long-haul Amtrak routes with higher-end accommodations and food. The evidence suggests there's not the demand.
I think it's partially a chicken-or-the-egg problem. Honestly, I didn't even know these private rail cars existed until this article. I feel like if the Kardashians took a cross-country tour in one of these things and Instagrammed it that it would be all the rage.
You need a critical mass of volume though. You can get pretty nice suites on Amtrak today on the long-haul routes. It's admittedly not luxury in the sense of really first-class food and everyone dressing up but probably a nice slow travel experience so long as you don't care too much about arriving as scheduled. I'm not convinced there's that big a market for don't care about cost + don't care about time.
Sleeping cars, while still existing, are pretty much a dying species in Europe.
Significantly higher speeds made them pretty much obsolete.
While, for example, it used to take 7+ hours to get from Zurich to Paris (and artificially longer, if it was a night train) the trip now takes 4 hours by TGV.
I've actually contacted for a quote before. I've thought about doing it for a birthday ;)
I was quoted 7500 per day minimum. Plus staff, food, etc.
My trip would be Den -> San Fran the problem is the most realistic response from a charter company I got was based in Chicago! So you have to think about days to get to your location, plus the return. Plus your trip.
I've also really wanted to do a Belmond long trip but they book sooo far in advance and I usually dont book trips until a month or two out. Maybe I'll treat myself for a 2021 ticket for my 30th birthday lol
