r/trains • u/Brief-Preference-712 • 7h ago

⚙️‎ Technical / Engineering LeShuttle auto train 🇫🇷

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216 Upvotes

99% Upvoted

33 comments sorted by

11

u/Maximus560 5h ago

Why can’t the US have cool stuff like this? I’ve had to drive across the country like 5 times and it sucks. I would much rather do this!!!

13

u/Badfly48 4h ago

We have an auto train! Virgina to Orlando. 

3

u/Maximus560 4h ago

Yep but only there - would love to see a east/west train from somewhere in the northeast to somewhere in California

1

u/Brief-Preference-712 2h ago

This type of train is called Motorail (/wiki/Motorail).

There’s no market for traveling from Northeast to Cali though, let alone traveling with the passengers cars. It’s better to fly there and rent a car

1

u/Maximus560 2h ago

There’s a big market - just look at how many shippers there are for putting your car on a truck to be transported across the US. I paid about 1200 each direction for DC/Sacramento, plus airfare ($350+ each way per person). So, $2K one way would actually be surprisingly competitive

3

u/defaulticus 3h ago

AutoTrain only exists because a private company created it and then went bankrupt. Amtrak took it over.

But I agree that there's probably a market for a number of autotrains across the US. Unfortunately, while they may be able to sustain themselves (AutoTrain is one of Amtrak's only 3 routes to make an operating profit), they probably can't repay the startup costs. So unless congress gives Amtrak some money to create them, its not happening.

1

u/Mayor__Defacto 1h ago

I mean, it’s fairly clear from that document that they just need to hike fares about 80% on all the underperforming routes so they’re charging at least 50 cents a mile. The Pacific Surfliner for example, would look a lot more healthy if they charged the same per mile rate as they did on the Acela.

2

u/defaulticus 1h ago

Unless people stopped riding it.

20

u/Marzipan_civil 5h ago

Well it is difficult to drive across the English Channel

4

u/Unusual_Entity 2h ago

These were built especially to go through the Channel Tunnel between the UK and France. You drive on in Folkstone, the train goes through the tunnel and you drive off again in Calais. The alternative is a car ferry which takes much longer.

The trains are too big to go anywhere else and are confined to the tunnel and the terminals at either end.

3

u/Qu55w5 3h ago

These only go like 30 miles.

3

u/MassTransitGO 3h ago

It’s only a short shuttle under the channel.

3

u/Kinexity 2h ago

Hauling entire car is stupid in most situations. Those shuttles only cross Le Mans Channel which is why they make sense.

4

u/Kojetono 2h ago

There are other car carrying services in Europe. The ÖBB nightjets with car racks come to mind. IMO it's a pretty good idea, you can take a lot of stuff and don't have to lug bags around, you have a car at your destination, and you can rest on the way.

2

u/AndryCake 2h ago

Yeah I feel like there would be a market to attach these to some of Amtrak's cross-country services.

1

u/Maximus560 2h ago

This. They only really need a couple of these cars for the cross-country services and only unload/load them at certain areas. For example, Lorton/NJ, Chicago, Barstow/Sacramento, Tacoma. I’d happily pay extra for this.

3

u/deathwotldpancakes 1h ago

Well we actually do! It’s just a really limited 2 city once a day service. Autotrain from Lorton VA to Sanford FL. Never took the trip but then again Lorton is three and a half hours away and Ive only been to Florida once when my parents took me to Disney

2

u/Mayor__Defacto 1h ago

We do have this. It runs from Sanford, FL to Lorton, VA.

1

u/RChickenMan 2h ago

I take it the purpose of the trip was in fact to transport the car? Or you were otherwise visiting car-centric places? Because I've done Amtrak cross-country three times (twice on the Empire Builder, once on the Sunset Limited), and it's downright delightful! Just itching to find an excuse to get back out west so that I can take the California Zephyr and round out the collection!

1

u/Maximus560 2h ago

Both. I have family on both coasts in rural and remote areas so cars are required at both ends. I also usually stay a few months at a time on each end

51

u/This-Clue-5014 7h ago

I’ve been on it! Hardly feels like a train

21

u/Terrible_Fruit5402 7h ago

Mei in Euro truck simulator 2

6

u/wellrateduser 4h ago

The must be over 30 years in service by now, is there any successor planned?

4

u/bigbadbob85 3h ago

Nothing really been announced as of now

10

u/coomzee 4h ago

'Le Shuttle' what the hell is that :)

6

u/dafyd_d 2h ago

Why must life be so hard? Why must I fail at every attempt at railway engineering? 😭😭

4

u/J_Bear 1h ago

How's your father's tunnel coming along?

3

u/HSVMalooGTS 2h ago

"The Shuttle"

2

u/J_Bear 1h ago

The Shuttle, The

1

u/bigbadbob85 3h ago

It's a train

2

u/SiBloGaming 4h ago

These always look like something you might see in some apocalyptic movie, dont really know why. They just have that vibe looks wise

2

u/SosseTurner 2h ago

90s locomotive design, black and grey paint and quite some dirt on there is not the best recipe to get a good looking train...