gauge is likely easy to change. Not cheap, but Amtrak demands expensive inspections and refurbishment to run, so the cost of changing the gauge is likely fairly small compared to the other costs.

Not sure if it directly helps here, but multi gaage railway cars are a thing. Iirc on some European lines, the trains switch their gauge.

All European railway operators are legally required to offer this, by the way: it's an open market, so (provided there is physical space) they have to allow anyone to run their own train. Normally this means freight trains, but it also means companies like FlixTrain can attempt to compete with the large national train operators - and of course it allows for one-off charters.

The only downside is that preference is given to regularly scheduled services, and the remaining space is first-come-first-serve, so on the busier routes there's a decent chance you'll have to take a large detour instead, or sit in a siding waiting for a while.

There are clubs[1][2] of owners, and they'll generally rent them out to people. We looked into doing it for my bachelor party. Unfortunately, the cost is akin to renting a yacht for the same amount of time (On the order of thousands per day, minimum), so we quickly shelved that plan for an AirBnB.

[1] https://www.aaprco.com/

[2] https://www.rpca.com/

I don't have personal experience, but I've heard it's not viable. The biggest issue is that Amtrak offers the service on a "best effort" basis, which means that if the train you want to hook up to is running late (which this frequently are due to conflicts with cargo traffic), they won't hook your car up, and you have to wait for the next train, which also might not be able to hook you up.

There are a few clubs that have cars that do this for a club outing. Members pay a small amount of dues, but the largest cost is labor - you are expected to help rebuild their cars. Most of the club money seems to come from renting the cars out.

The above is what I gather from reading their websites. However there is no club close enough to me for joining to be reasonable and so I didn't verify the above.

There is a fee schedule available: https://www.amtrak.com/content/dam/projects/dotcom/english/p...

If I ever get to be a millionaire, it’s certainly on my list!

Isn't that propagating with around the speed of light? Switzerland is only about 1 light ms wide so even if they only have one master clock instead of one per train station the latency should be negligible especially in the 1950s.

The speed of light is copper wires is fast enough that you don't need to factor this in. At least not for human purposes.

I know the Swiss are known for punctuality and timekeeping, but I don’t think anyone is going to notice a 33μs delay to their train.

"Clubs" as a thing is such a great concept, and if you feel like there is some humanity missing because of all the things going on, they're real places with lots of humans and humanity in them. They work great for lots of things, from trains, computing, music to boats, puppets, gardening and whatever else. If there is no club where you live, you'll surely find at least one other member if you start it yourself :)

If we're doing hypotheticals, why not both?

This. The general concept of "terrible public transport tech disguising as a good & novel idea" has a name: gadgetbahn.

When London Bridge was sold in the 1960s it was also on the buyer to pick it up from its original location and transport it to the US

But please note that the bridge will be available without the guard rail / fence, parts of the concrete might be missing, and the rust proofing needs a refresh!