This idea has been kicking around between the 'higherups' at the major clubs in Denmark recently.

The idea at the moment is to have a restored car fleet held in one or many locations throughout Denmark. Clubs within the program would all be on equal footing, pay the equal yearly dues, and have equal access to the fleet's use provided they schedule the use of the cars in advance. Should damage occur to a car or cars while under the employ of a club, the car fleet board member group would hold a meeting to decide if the club should be held liable for damages based on the incident, if not funding would come out of the pool fund.

Should the idea be approved by all clubs and be deemed worthy of pursuit, it has been quite well assured that a large amount of government funding would be made available to create a shop/storage shed for the fleet.

The main drive for this idea has come from the painstakingly obvious situation that some clubs have material in the standard 'rust bucket form' that has led to low ridership levels as many see the equipment and say "I dont want to ride in THAT wagon". For some of our clubs (mine included) we have coaches in good/excellent condition with mainline certification that hold still approximately 60% of the year. This downtime, through the coach pool, could turn into profit for another club, and alleviate some maintenance from our own coach department.

My point with this is as such;
Does anyone have any examples, past or present, of a group doing this somewhere either successfully or unsuccessfully?

Can anyone lay out any positive or negative points they can think of in relation to this idea?

Would love the feedback and possible evidence to pass on! As of now this is all preliminary.

Have you looked at what RPCA does on this side of the pond?

Bob H

I am not familiar enough to know if the various European railroad's each have their own requirements , or whether the European Union has a rail agency to establish international interoperability standards. In the States, the defacto standard is acceptance by Amtrak of a car, to operate on their trains. These standards incorporate, where applicable, a number of Federal Railroad Administration and Association of American Railroad standards. When minimal overhaul and maintenance inspections and tests are met and passed, the car is issued an 800000-series number, and is accepted for operation as private cars attached to Amtrak trains, for a period of a year, when re-inspection and testing is required. These Amtrak standards are pretty much mechanical standards, and they do not address the appearance of the interior, interior amenities, or environmental (HVAC) systems. The car must appear presentable on the exterior. More and more Class I and regional carriers, are asking if the cars are Amtrak acceptable before agreeing to operate, or even in some cases, to move cars. For freight or dead-head (unoccupied moves), AAR and FRA standards would still apply. Individual railroads may also have their one unique requirements, such as not accepting cars with non-rotating end-cap roller bearings. Charter operators in the States have a pretty good idea about cars available for charter or use on their trains, based on experience.

Illinois Railway Museum may be a single entity, but all its projects are independently projected and financed. If you unify the separate operators in some way creating a coop or some kind of organization, you may be able to fair better, do some sharing, whatever, fly some ideas around.