Rolling Along on the Rails

By John Skow

Adults who play with toy trains know that a certain amount of snickering goes on behind their backs. It may be this lack of respect that drives a few hobbyists to play with full-size trains. You may rage at a plutocrat who swans around in his private railroad car, but unless you have one of your own, it is hard to sneer at him.

Having one of your own is a phrase with a ring to it, and since the mid- 1960s, when only one privately owned railroad car rolled in the entire country, it is a ring that more than a few people have answered. Railroad slang for privately owned stock is "private varnish," and a magazine by that name is sent to some 3,000 train buffs. The American Association of Private Railroad Car Owners has 157 full and 240 associate members, and 230 cars are registered in Amtrak's Washington headquarters, most of them lavishly furnished and all fully functional as surefire jealousy inducers.

That single private car in use two decades ago was the Virginia City, a Pullman redecorated in the 1950s to the specifications of cafe society Chronicler Lucius Beebe and his friend Charles Clegg, members of the crushed- velvet school of design. The rococo trappings, now somewhat tattered, include gold-colored silk curtains, an oil painting on the ceiling copied from the Sistine Chapel and a white Venetian marble fireplace. Passengers who wish to slosh champagne on the open rear platform and watch the world whiz by can do so for a trifling $2,000 a day (drinks included).

Bill Gardner, 38, president of a Milwaukee electrical-supplies firm, bought a car for $45,000 in 1984, then spent $450,000 fitting it out with a telephone, a washer and dryer, two teak-finished bathrooms, a living room done in walnut and brass, and a Lenox china service for twelve. Business entertainment is given as one reason for these wonders. Playing with trains is the fuller explanation. If you are going to play, however, why not do things in a big way? In 1973 Entrepreneur Roy Thorpe, 50, from Fort Lauderdale, was talked into taking a steam locomotive excursion from Hoboken, N.J., to Binghamton, N.Y. Hitched to the train was the Clover Colony, a perfectly restored Pullman. Thorpe had a couple of whiskey sours while watching the Delaware Water Gap recede from the car's veranda. "It was a soul-stirring sight," he says. The next year he bought the Hampton Roads, a car with two staterooms, observation room, kitchen pantry and crew's quarters. He sold it last year, but missed it so much that he bought another much like it, and now owns five other cars, including a Union Pacific diner. Given ten days' notice, Amtrak is happy to move a private varnish almost anywhere on its tracks. The price, however, is a tad higher than a first-class ticket. It cost Businessman Gardner more than $14,500 in fees to transport his car from Milwaukee to California and back again in June. Popular runs include the stretch between Washington and New York City and the mountain-hugging route from Salt Lake City to Denver.

J.P. Morgan Jr.'s private car, the Erie 400, is rolling again, partly owned by John Hankins, an attorney from Huntington, W.Va. Most private-car owners seem to be fairly affluent, though some admit to being drastically less affluent after upkeep and renovations. "Sooner or later the cost of maintaining a car gets to you," says Larry Haines, 71, a retiree who has spent nearly $40,000 on the Clover Colony in 14 years. Haines' car is a bargain compared with the Caritas, a 1948 Pullman bought for $10,000 three years ago by Clark Johnson, a Denver physicist. Some $280,000 later, the Caritas is an art-deco beauty, its 14 roomettes ripped out and replaced with a lounge, dining room, kitchen, master bedroom and an open-air platform. Richard Horstmann, 50, a political consultant from Syracuse, admits, "I can't afford this," meaning the Black Diamond, which was the private car of the Lehigh Valley Line's board chairman when Horstmann first saw it as a boy of twelve. The better to afford his dream, Horstmann fills his car with paying guests about a dozen times a year.

Elbow grease and friends help. Larry Bauman, 36, a petroleum geologist, and five partners bought the Palm Leaf in 1982 for $5,000. After 5,000 hours and an investment of $100,000, the gleaming silver Pullman is within a few weeks of rolling out of Denver. Is it worth it? To paraphrase J.P. Sr.: If you have to ask, it's not. "You have a sense of travel in a train car," says Bauman. "In a yacht, what can you do? Go out to the horizon and turn around and come back. Here you can see America."

With reporting by Charles Pelton/ San Francisco