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Comment by runamuck

2 days ago

Any idea how much it costs to buy your own private train car?

A disused car is $100-200k depending on condition, and it’d probably cost about as much to refurbish into use. An off the shelf fully outfitted luxury car can cost a million or more.

Operating, maintenance, and storage costs dwarf the capital costs within a few years so unless it’s rusting in a backyard, the expensive part is using it rather than buying one. Storage alone costs $30k-50k a year.

  • You can get rail cars for free every once in a while the problem is you have to then pay to transport it to someplace you can store it. But usually there’s a rail club somewhere nearby that would love to have an addition to the collection if you’re paying to make it nice and usable.