You Will Never Own A Real Train

Alongside toy rockets, cars, and dinosaurs, I’m sure trains were a prominent part of your childhood experience. Trains were first invented in the very early 17th century by Richard Trevithick and Andrew Vivian in England. Since then, they have been widely implemented across a majority of the world. They can travel long distances, carrying cargo or people with them to new places. Nowadays trains come in many different styles, ranging from subways, long-distance passengers, freight, monorail, light rail, and even the futuristic maglev trains. 

Have you ever considered what it would be like to own one such train? Probably not. And why would you, since you will probably never own a real train anyway? Here’s why:

Acquiring a Train

The USA used to be a major manufacturer of trains, but now their production is reduced to a select few European and Asian companies. The production of trains is an expensive and complicated process, involving tons of small parts producers delivering to major suppliers, who then ship everything to an assembler company to put together. And these companies are very picky about who they sell to. The railroad business is pretty much a monopoly, with only a set few companies being in the public transportation market. Companies like Amtrak, BNSF, and the Canadian National Railway are pretty much in control when it comes to train transportation. It is next to impossible to acquire a train from the assemblers as an independent company, let alone an individual. 

Private trains are available to purchase, but they come at a high price due to their exclusivity. Engine trains or locomotives can range from 500 thousand to 6 million, depending on whether they are fuel or electric powered. And that's not including the individual passenger cars, each of which can go for at least a couple thousand extra dollars. It is possible to rent out individual rail cars from a select few companies, but even that is limited to just business companies. And even then, it's only one car. How much can you do with just a single train car? You can’t even move it around on its own without the agreement of the train owner, and all it's used for is storing cargo. 

So, I assume you don’t have a spare couple million lying around, and therefore can’t buy a train. What about building one? Not as plausible as one would assume. Getting prebuilt parts would involve going through the suppliers, who are pretty much all owned by the railroad companies anyway. But let's assume you were able to either acquire the parts or make them from raw materials. Now you still need some way to construct the train itself. You’d need lots of heavy-duty welding equipment, an industrial press for the wheels, and at minimum a functioning crane to move individual parts around. Remember, trains are big, and most importantly heavy. Additionally, unless you like the gray look of steel, you’d need massive amounts of paint to cover your train. All of which would be impractical to acquire and set up on your own. Probably why entire companies are dedicated to constructing trains instead of just individuals.

Storing a Train

So, let's assume that somehow, you’ve acquired a functional and complete train. What do you do with it? Public transportation trains are stored in depots. Depots are usually owned by their respective train companies, which I assume you aren’t in charge of right now, so you don’t have access to the depots. You can’t build a new one yourself either, as that requires a ton of land, material, and of course a construction permit, not to mention the tracks.

Owning a train is fine, but what good is a train without tracks? Trains can’t run on regular roads in their current form, as they would just dig into the pavement under their weight. As such, trains use rails made of steel to travel. This severely restricts where they can go, and where you can store them. To allow your private train to travel on the public tracks, you’d have to get permission from both the railroad companies that use the tracks, and whatever city, county, or other areas the tracks are located in. Building your own railroad for private use would land you at roughly 1-2 million per mile of track, adding to the already steep cost for just the locomotive alone. 

Maintaining a Train

Alright, so for the sake of argument, let's assume you can both own and use your newly constructed train. But with use comes maintenance. Both the train and tracks are exposed to many natural elements throughout their use, and repairs are expensive. Typically, these would be handled at the Depot, but due to the aforementioned reasons, you most likely won’t have access to one. Much like train construction, train repair would require most of the same heavy-duty industrial machinery. In the case of failure, the train would have to be disassembled down to where the parts in question can be removed and inspected. There is also the matter of keeping the train looking nice and presentable. Washing off each train car from dirt and rust would take hours for a single person to achieve, not including the interior, which could be compared to maintaining a room in your house… but for a train, so more extreme. 

Not to mention, trains consume large amounts of fuel to function. On average, passenger and cargo trains move at about 480 miles per gallon of fuel. Which, all things considered, is quite environmentally friendly, but still a lot of fuel to use. Especially today, fuel is expensive to get hands on. As an alternative, you can opt for an old-style steam-powered locomotive, which consumes only around 48 pounds of coal per mile. A third electric option exists as well. Electric trains can either draw from their supply from a generator or draw upon transmission lines that can run on specific track systems. All three of which result in a high upkeep cost for keeping your train functional.

Conclusion

I’m sorry to break it to you, but unless you have a ton of money and land to throw around, you will never own a real train. But don’t be sad. You can still collect model trains like every other want-to-be but non-train owner.

Image obtained from Squarespace.