[tonyo]

Ride the rails in style

http://i.l.cnn.net/cnn/2007/TRAVEL/07/11/amtrak.luxury.ap/art.grandluxe.ap.jpg
The typical sleeper car operated by GrandLuxe Rail Journeys offers passengers a more luxurious rail travel experience.


WASHINGTON (AP) -- Mahogany interiors, five-course meals and personal butler service will be available on several Amtrak routes starting this fall, as the national passenger railroad embarks on a new partnership with GrandLuxe Rail Journeys.

The companies have teamed up to attach seven special GrandLuxe cars to regularly scheduled Amtrak trains. More than 90 departures are scheduled from November to early January.

The new service, dubbed GrandLuxe Limited, will be available between Chicago and the San Francisco Bay area; Chicago and Los Angeles; and Washington and Miami. Limited trips are also scheduled between Washington and Chicago; from Denver to San Francisco; from Denver to Chicago; and from Chicago to Albuquerque.

For Amtrak, the partnership will be a moneymaker, company spokesman Cliff Black said. He declined to say exactly how much privately held GrandLuxe is paying the government-owned corporation.

The project marks the first time Amtrak is providing regularly scheduled private rail services.

"We like the opportunity to experiment with creative marketing approaches," Black said. "Anything that elevates the profile of passenger-train service is beneficial to Amtrak."

The arrangement allows Evergreen, Colorado-based GrandLuxe, formerly known as American Orient Express, to bring its brand of luxury to a wider group of potential customers in a more affordable format.

Tickets for the two- and three-day GrandLuxe Limited trips will range in price from $789 to $2,499. In contrast, GrandLuxe's regular tours take seven to 10 days and range in price from about $4,000 to $8,000 per person.

For its longer trips, GrandLuxe operates one 21-car train that consists of old passenger cars from the 1940s and 1950s -- a time when train travel had not yet been overshadowed by the interstate highway system and commercial aviation. The cars have been refurbished to conform to modern standards and to add "a level of luxury that never existed," said Christina Messa, vice president of marketing for GrandLuxe.

For the Amtrak partnership, GrandLuxe will split its train in three. Each segment will have a dining car and a lounge car and have room for 47 passengers, Messa said. It will operate completely separately from the Amtrak portion of the train.

GrandLuxe passengers will not be able to get off at intermediate stops because of limitations such as platform length, though the companies said that could change in the future.

Amtrak will operate the same number of cars it normally would, but in some cases it may have to add an extra locomotive, Black said.

The companies said they could continue and expand the partnership if it is successful.

GrandLuxe trains tend to appeal to older travelers, and Messa said she expected the new Amtrak routes to do the same.

Tom Weakley, 64, has ridden GrandLuxe trains 16 times since retiring from a job in the drug wholesaling industry. He said he relishes being pampered on board the train. A butler brings coffee in the morning. In the afternoon, there are cocktails in the lounge car.

The lounge cars themselves vary: One features a baby grand piano; another, used for particularly scenic routes, is surrounded by glass.

Dinners are long and unhurried -- an opportunity to make friends with fellow passengers, said Weakley, of Indianapolis.

"Did I mention the complimentary wine?" he added. "And they don't limit you to one glass."

Story Highlights

Amtrak and GrandLuxe Rail Journeys are partnering to offer luxury rail service

GrandLuxe cars will be attached to regularly scheduled Amtrak trains

Five-course meals and personal butler service will be available

More than 90 departures are scheduled from November to early January

http://www.cnn.com/2007/TRAVEL/07/11/amtrak.luxury.ap/index.html?iref=newssearch

[fflint]

And yet $8,000 could put you in a luxurious environment that travels faster than a glacier.

"Amtrak GrandLuxe: ultra-luxury...at the speed of ice!"

[Daquan13]

Washington wants them to speed up service along the Northeast Corridor.

Amtrak says that it can't do that as yet because it needs about $700b to complete the upgrade along that line.

[BTinSF]

I think this is the direction AMTRAK needs to be going, but it is barely a "news" event. For many years, at least--probably since its founding--AMTRAK has hauled private rail cars, of which there are still a surprising number, behind its regular trains (for a fee). This amounts to doing so on a regular schedule. It has also, in the past, hauled freight and still hauls mailcars. The freight was largely discontinued when it was found that hooking and unhooking the freight cars took time that ultimately delayed the trains and disrupted passenger service. Let's hope this doesn't do the same.

Fflint's comment about the $8000 cost of Grandluxe's regular 10-day tours is a little off the mark, though maybe not entirely. This has nothing to do with AMTRAK, because that figure refers to the tours they have long run themselves with their own trains (I assume they lease the locomotives from the freight railroads). The object of such "land cruises" is not to get anywhere but to see parts of the country you can't see any other way. Especially in the West, rails sometimes parallel roads but often not, traversing inaccessible country with gorgeous scenery. And these train journeys don't go straight through--the train stops and "guests" (passengers) are put in deluxe hotels at night so that all their travel time is in daylight with the scenery visible. That plus the fact that a 10-day trip would include roughly 30 "gourmet" meals accounts for the $8000 price tag but I say Fflint may not be entirely off the mark because that's still pretty high if you compare it to a seaborn cruise of equal length.

The $789 price tag of a 2-day Grandluxe/AMTRAK trip is not out of line with the roughly $275 cost of a similar trip with the least expensive sleeping accommodations on AMTRAK itself.

Anyway, I'm for anything that gives AMTRAK more income and an incentive not to drop any of its existing routes, which constitute pretty much a minimum system. And I've long thought they need to go in the direction of offering a service with more ammenities--for older, richer travelers in no hurry--rather than in that of cutting what amenities they had as they have been doing in recent years.

By the way, a friend just made an AMTRAK reservation for a short trip in the Pacific Northwest and found that, at $35, AMTRAK was cheaper than an intercity bus. What's with that? I think they have room to raise fairs a bit in many places and for many trips and, since they need more revenue, they probably should.

[tonyo]

And yet $8,000 could put you in a luxurious environment that travels faster than a glacier.

"Amtrak GrandLuxe: ultra-luxury...at the speed of ice!"

True, but that's missing the point of this service. The intention is not to be the TGV. It's to provide a scenic trip while being higher end. I prefer the Acela but this new service seems interesting.

[Smiley Person]

I've travelled overnight frequently sleeping in coach, and even that is first-class compared to airline standards.

Though trains will never be anywhere near as fast as flying on long distance routes, a moderate increase in speed, reliability, and frequency of service will make it attractive to a lot more people, especially for those travelling moderate distances between intermediate points. There's really no excuse for trains being slower than driving.

[Swede]

On a related note (as in, train-travel as an important experience in itself), this year so a new way to get to Italy from Sweden: charter-trains. Completely sold out well before departure, but sadly since the different countries have different standards for the power-lines and such it's not a one-seat ride. Still a big step up from having to book ones own ticket on first Swedish, then Danish, German, Swiss and Italian trains...

[BTinSF]

^^^You got me confused there now. Back in the 1970s, I travelled all over Europe by train. The longest single trip probably was on the old Orient Express (when it was just a regular train, not a tourist land cruise, and split the train in Yugoslavia, part going to Istanbul and part to Athens). I got on in Salzburg and got off in Athens, having traversed Austria, Yugoslavia and Greece. On other rides, I went from Nice to Amsterdam, Amsterdam to Copenhagen and Copenhagen to Stockholm, crossing the straight on a ferry (I think there's a bridge now, no?). For all of these trips, I just had to buy a single ticket at the place I left from. We did switch engines and train crews at borders and, when we entered and left Yugoslavia, which was then Communist, the border crossing was very dramatic with multiple demands for "your papers, please" and luggage inspections--even yappy German Shepherd dogs sniffing under the train.

[Swede]

Ah, but nowadays they're not all state monopolies and seemingly don't even have a clue how to make it possible to buy tickets for the whole ride at you're startign point. Look in the HSR in Europe thread, you'll see some of the HSR will now have a possibility of joint ticketting :\
With a little planning ahead it's no big problem getting tickets for the whole trip before you start, but it's usually not as simple as going to the ticket-office at your starting point. Personally I find this really weird. With all the modern technology (which is mostly about communication, right?) how difficult can it be to set up a system that works around the passenger's needs??

Also this new charter-train thing is a package including a hotel stay in Italy and all that jazz too.

/only ever asked to show my passport once on a train, but it was taking me so long to find it they just waved me thru (helps that I look totally Scandinavian and that everyone else in my group had Swedish passports).

[Red UM Rebel]

I am glad that Amtrak is offering this service. I love taking the Crescent City Express from Biloxi to New Orleans. It takes way too long, but it is an enjoyable ride. Why spend the money on luxury train rides though when you can just buy a rail car. I watched a special on a family that for $250,000 they bought an old presidential rail car, spent another $100,000 updating it, and traveled every where in it. They lived in New York and stored it in New Jersey. What was really surprising was how reasonable it was for Amtrak to pick up your car and connect to one of its trains.

For those that are interested, they are now offering one for $60,000 on ebay. (http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/1933-Train-Caboose-Steel-must-see-railroad-car_W0QQcmdZViewItemQQcategoryZ6737QQihZ019QQitemZ290139137219QQrdZ1#ebayphotohosting)

I know it is rather unrealistic, but I would love and use a national railroad that was as efficient and convenient as trains in Europe.

[twoNeurons]

There's a similar service in BC: The Rocky Mountaineer (http://www.rockymountaineer.com/)

[BTinSF]

/only ever asked to show my passport once on a train, but it was taking me so long to find it they just waved me thru (helps that I look totally Scandinavian and that everyone else in my group had Swedish passports).

My first and longest European train trip was right after the Munich Olympics terrorist incident. The Germans, in particular, were waving no one through. In fact, I had been practicing my French with a guy sitting next to me but when he offerred an Algerian passport at the German border, they pulled him off the train and I never saw him again.

[BTinSF]

There's a similar service in BC: The Rocky Mountaineer (http://www.rockymountaineer.com/)

Yeah, it uses the old route through Calgary and Banff rather than the northern route that ViaRail now uses through Edmonton. One used to be the Canadian Pacific route and the other was the Canadian National route (I forget which was which). The AMTRAK service being discussed here would be as if The Rocky Mountaineer began hooking their cars at the end of ViaRail trains and paying ViaRail to haul them.