Talk:Auto Train

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Auto Train has had a peer review by Wikipedia editors which is now archived. It may contain ideas you can use to improve this article.

[edit] From the peer review

Auto Train (Amtrak)

This article is a collaborative effort of Vaoverland and Slambo. each of us has been working daily and/or nightly on railroad-related articles. This one should have a broad appeal to include families and younger Wikipedia readers and presents an interesting opportunity to learn more about trains, including several types of locomotives, passenger cars, auto carrier freight cars (called autoracks in trade terminology) and even the old favorite, the caboose. It is also about a new innovative business idea, making profits, growing too much, having bad luck, and bankruptcy and failure. Resurrection of failed private railroad passenger service is what Amtrak is all about, and this is an example. There is also a mention of the debate underway about privatization of such services. All photos are credited and used with permission, and we have enhanced some of the subject linked, such as autorack, and are working on the few which still lack an article. Suggestions for improvement are welcome. All aboard? Vaoverland 10:05, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Auto Train is a unique rail transportation service for both passengers and their automobiles in the United States.

In what way is it unique? Several countries have (or, in the case of Britain's Motorail, used to have) a service for transporting cars along with passengers. Loganberry 13:19, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

It's unique in the US. Autotrain and Alaska Railroad are the only two such services that I know of that operate in the US. As the quote reads, it is correct: Auto Train is a unique rail tranportation service ... in the United States. slambo 14:57, Nov 15, 2004 (UTC)

But if there is another such service in Alaska, then surely Autotrain can't be unique even within the US. Loganberry 16:04, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Point taken, the sentence could probably be reworded better or made specific to the 48 contiguous states. slambo 16:40, Nov 15, 2004 (UTC)

Actually, we may both have a point. According to [1], the Alaskan service was discontinued in 2000, so Auto Train is indeed unique in the USA, albeit not in the world. I've done a bit of rewording of the first sentence, to try to make it a bit clearer. Loganberry 16:49, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

To correct the above statement, the Motorail service is still operated in the United Kingdom by First Great Western between London Paddington and Penzance. (Our Phellap 21:06, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC))

In light of the above I will amend the article to clarify the first paragraph of the lead to note the service in the U.K.. Thanks. Vaoverland 21:43, Mar 14, 2005 (UTC)

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Auto-trains in Europe

There are two car carrier train companies in Europe that I know of.

In Germany, Die Bahn Autozug [2] have services from 16 national stations to cities in France, Italy, Austria and Croatia. These are very popular. 200 000 cars transported yearly, half a million passengers. They are currently celebrating the 75 years of car- and person-carrying trains.

In Finland, VR [3] has a popular car-carrying service on their night-trains from the south to the north and vice versa. They have recently bought 15 new carriers for €8 million, and transports 35000 cars a year.

.... and some more:

Austria [4] has regular daytime trains (EC/IC) or night trains (EN) with automobile transport cars (DDm).

Belgium/Netherlands have "Euro Express Treincharter" [5] and "The Train Company", with semi-regular international tourist trains (including a lot of the former NMBS/SNCB and NS night rolling stock).

That list is by far not exhaustive. See also Motorail trains in Europe.

Thanks for the additional information. At the least, we can work more of this into the article. Mark in Richmond. Vaoverland 18:46, May 17, 2005 (UTC)

The information on other countries' auto trains was recently added to Intermodal passenger transport. I think the main body of non-U.S. service information should be in just one place, either there or in a new article on auto trains worldwide. --agr 14:29, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

What about the chunnel car shuttles? Patcat88 14:27, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Original research tags

Is anyone actually working on getting those removed? They have been there for 7 months now. The two sections in question are certainly unreferenced and infested with weasel words. If no one objects to this I frankly suggest that they be deleted from the article until someone is actually able to source the information in them. Dispute tags are not meant to stay there forever. They are meant as an encouragment to improve the article/section. If that doen't happen then it needs to be considered if it should be removed. MartinDK 15:46, 11 November 2006 (UTC)