For years, Amtrak has hauled vintage passenger cars around the country at the rear of regularly scheduled passenger trains. For this service, the owners of the private cars pay about $2.75 per mile, plus additional charges for switching, storage, etc. Six months or so ago, Amtrak announced tough new restrictions on these private rail…
Every so often, you’ll see a private rail car at the rear of an Amtrak train. The insider term for those cars is “PV”, which is shorthand for “private varnish”. That’s a reference to the lovely wood paneling and trim that’s found in many of those cars. Most of those classic rail cars are…
Every so often, you’ll spot one of Amtrak’s long-distance trains with one or more vintage railroad cars hooked onto the end of the train. Most of those wonderful old cars are owned by private individuals, most of whom belong to an organization called the American Association of Private Railcar Owners. Last April, when I…