(The following article by Gabriel H. Gluck was posted on the Newark Star-Ledger website on August 16.)
NEWARK, N.J. — Imagine living the life of a 19th-century robber baron — if only for a weekend.
Your own private rail car, complete with a private lounge area to watch the passing scenery, a private dining room with a personal chef to prepare your meals, and a full-sized bed with a steward to turn down the covers.
It’s not a fantasy, if you’re willing to spend big bucks. And the Morristown & Erie Railway is betting a growing number of railroad fans will.
While the vast bulk of the M&E’s business is moving freight in Morris and Union counties, from its headquarters in Morristown, the company also operates a private charter business catering to individuals and corporations.
The charters can be brief, such as a weekend jaunt to Montreal aboard the “Ohio River,” a Pullman car once used by those accustomed to traveling in style. They can also be very long: One family recently took the “Ohio River” to Seattle.
In between, there’s fall foliage weekend charters to Pittsburgh or a southern excursion to Miami, which several couples recently took, sharing the cost of the four-bedroom, mahogany-paneled car for a week.
But if a customer has another destination in mind, and there’s a track to get there, the M&E says just about anything is doable.
The cost of a Montreal weekend runs around $6,500, less if one finds like-minded souls to share the adventure, said Gordon Fuller, the M&E’s chief operating officer. The trip, he said, follows one of the most scenic rail routes in the country, up through the Hudson River Valley and then alongside Lake George and Lake Champlain.
That recent trip to Seattle, complete with chef and steward, ran about $30,000, while the trip to Miami, where three couples also used the car as their hotel suite for a week, ran about $27,000.
Regardless of the length of the trip, guests are pampered with hors d’oeuvres served in the parlor area, with its Oriental rug and draped windows, while dinner is served in a separate dining area, the table set with English china and M&E monogrammed stemware.
The M&E’s boutique business, which started four years ago with one car and now offers six vintage cars to choose from, accounts for upwards of 12 percent of the railroad’s revenue, said Fuller, who sees significant growth potential in the niche travel market.
“There are more wealthy people in this country who want to ride this way,” Fuller said.
It doesn’t hurt that the M&E is one of only a handful of vintage rail car owners in the country that contract out their cars.
Last year, one of the M&E’s parlor cars was chartered for a birthday party up the Hudson River to Albany and back, while businesses have rented cars for company parties to Pittsburgh, Baltimore and Washington, D.C., Fuller said.
The M&E has also found its vintage cars are a tremendous draw for charity events. Many of the causes are railroad related, such as train rides to benefit a local railroad historical society.
Last year, Fuller teamed up with Bennett Levin, well known in rail circles for his collection of locomotives and cars, to provide a special train for injured Iraqi servicemen to travel to the Army-Navy football game in Philadelphia.
Levin is already planning a similar ride for this year, with the same restrictions — no politicians and no press on the train, he said.
Levin and Fuller also combined forces this summer for a train ride from Hoboken to Bay Head to benefit the American Public Transportation Association Scholarship Foundation.
“We wanted to do something really special,” said William Vantuonno, editor of the trade magazine Railway Age, who helped coordinate the event featuring six vintage cars. Vantuonno said the train ride raised $20,000 for the scholarship fund.
When individuals or corporations rent a car, it is usually hooked onto the rear of an Amtrak train or, for journeys through Canada, onto a Via Rail Canadian train.
A parlor observation car such as the “Alexander Hamilton” can seat 31 for a ride, while the “Ohio River,” with its four bedrooms and pull-out sofa, can sleep 10. Its four bedrooms each have a tiled bathroom with a sink and toilet. Two bedrooms share a shower.
While the 10-hour trip to Montreal is probably the most popular charter, some travelers have gone all the way to Vancouver, a five-day ride if there are no stops along the way.
“It’s just absolutely incredible,” said Fuller, who took the trip to Vancouver with his wife and another couple. “You have to have the time to do the ride, but if you have the time, it’s the worth the trip.”
Several of the M&E’s cars are now equipped with GPS systems, Fuller said, so that travelers can track their journey on a television, which also doubles as a DVD player for movies in the evening.
Because the chartered cars are coupled to regularly scheduled trains — Penn Station New York is a major departure point — perhaps the most stressful part of the journey is making sure travelers realize they must be at their departure station on time, Fuller said.
“They have to be there when the regular train arrives, or they can wave as it goes by — and there are no refunds,” Fuller said, conceding that with all the private trips arranged in recent years, he is the only one who ever missed a train.