Privately-Owned Rail Cars(amtrak.com) |
Privately-Owned Rail Cars(amtrak.com) |
> Typical pricing for a trip is along the lines of a high-end cruise. On average, the all-inclusive costs typically can run between $2,500 and $7,000 or more per car per day. But remember, a rail car may accommodate 6, 8, 10, 20 people or more.
https://www.aaprco.com/travel/where-do-i-start/chartering-a-...
Today they're basically private party trains and rail fan excursions.
Lots of railroad museums will have old private cars, some even road worthy.
How Much Does a New Railcar Cost to Buy?
The cost of a train car varies depending on the type of car and its features.
For example, a passenger train car may cost more than a freight train car. The
cost also depends on the train car’s brand, model, and year. On average, a
train car costs between $100,000 and $200,000.
How Much Does it Cost to Buy an Old Railroad Car?
If you’re interested in purchasing an old rail car, there are a few things you
need to know. First, it’s essential to know how much money you’re willing to
spend. Rail cars can vary significantly in price, depending on their age,
condition, and amenities. For example, an older car might cost less than
$5,000, while a newer model with more features could cost upwards of $50,000.My cost comment comes from seeing cars "surplus" for a few thousand dollars, but I'm guessing they might need significant upgrades to be eligible to hook up to Amtrak, not to mention being comfortable for the owner.
I think that mainly applies when you add a whole train to the train (you can hire them for multiple private cars)
They are often railworthy but they may not be up to Amtrak's standards. However, if you find a museum with a locomotive and cars; you can often hire them to run you someplace. But you may be pulled by a freight loco.
Once you have your car and you have passed your annual inspection, you will need somewhere to park it, which usually means finding a short-line railroad or commercial business with a siding near you, and paying them a fee. Getting the car from there to the nearest Amtrak station will require you to hire a locomotive with crew (some tracks require a second car coupled to the locomotive so crossings & signals work correctly). Amtrak then has a whole schedule of fees they will charge you, from $4.09 per mile, overnight parking, fresh & wastewater servicing, transponder tags, and parking fees.
You will want to hire a chef to prepare your meals and perhaps also a steward to serve the meals, make drinks, and take care of the staterooms. I'm not sure if they need to belong to the union since they would be your employees, not the railroads (but probably).
For the less than 100 private cars in operation in America, why does Amtrak even offer this service? Like the first class section on an airliner, it's effectively all profit for them since the train was going there anyway and the extra fuel to haul it & supply power is minimal. Personally I wonder why Amtrak doesn't offer a "Presidential" fare, where 6 or so people can book a private car and get truly top tier service.
Here's what a restored Pullman car can look like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdroQ4JqlYQ
I’ve heard that occasionally (rarely) they need to put some “public” cars behind the private ones. And if that happens, you are not allowed to prevent the public passengers from walking through your private car to get between the public sections.
Is that the case?
Train crew (conductors) always have the right to walk through the car. If your train goes into Tampa Florida for example, the train has to reverse out of the station to a wye so it can turn around. If you are the end car, the conductor will be there watching for problems, manning the emergency brake, and communicating with the engineer on their radio.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wye_(rail)
The new trainsets that Amtrak just ordered from Siemens Mobility come with cab cars, so the crew can use that to control the train and not be out in the weather (and have full gauges, etc.) The cab cars are part economy seating so if your private car is on that train, you will probably end up sandwiched between the cab car and the rest of the train and have people walking through.
See I knew there was a plus.
Supposedly the biggest cost associated with refurbishing a car is passing the Amtrak inspection of the bogies, axles, and wheels -- I believe they have to be completely replaced at 40 years of age. When a railroad retires a car, this equipment may be close to end-of-life.
Many freight railroads still have "office-car specials" -- passenger equipment for the executives to use. Those would probably be the easiest to get up to Amtrak specs.
Trivia: Amtrak will only run trains with private railcars at a maximum speed of 110 mph. On the Northeast Corridor, private railcars are only allowed to be added to the overnight Northeast Regional train which normally travels at 125 mph -- but there's enough padding in the schedule that they can slow it down to 110 without affecting the timetable.
Why not lease a car for a month, or a year? All those inspection, maintenance, parking, and labor costs are rolled into your fee, except the railroad can handle them much better than you can.
If it's "your" car, only people you approve of can sit in it. It's a rolling party!
Amtrak.com suggests rooms from Seattle to LA are ~$700 each. https://www.craigmashburn.com/amtrakcardiagrams.html says a Superliner sleeper car has 20 rooms. So you could rent out an entire car for about $14,000. Complementary meals included!
These guys claim $2500 a day for a charter. Not sure if it is legit or if there are other fees. (I assume you then also pay all the Amtrak fees). But I do have this on my back burner to try sometime. Since they offer some 4 bedroom coaches. Would be fun to get a group together to split the cost.
> For the less than 100 private cars in operation in America, why does Amtrak even offer this service?
Probably same situation as in Europe, they're legally mandated to give access to people and companies to their service under FRAND conditions. If you're interested, the fee tables are for nets and stations [0][1].
[0] https://www.deutschebahn.com/de/geschaefte/infrastruktur/bah...
[1] https://fahrweg.dbnetze.com/fahrweg-de/kunden/leistungen/tra...
What are you trying to ask? Don’t you answer this question, below?
>Like the first class section on an airliner, it's effectively all profit for them since the train was going there anyway and the extra fuel to haul it & supply power is minimal.
Or are you saying, there’s only 100 private cars, why not allow a Presidential fare from a fleet Amtrak cars?
My answer would be “ Like the first class section on an airliner, it's effectively all profit for them” this isn’t actually true. First class sections on planes were until recently mostly filled with frequent fliers that got free upgrades [1]. Those first class seats eat up a lot of space that could be directed to revenue-generating economy seats.
So I would imagine one reason Amtrak doesn’t offer a Presidential fare is because Amtrak would need to retrofit some cars to have that experience, and manage demand of those cars. The penalties of empty cars is less than that of an plane, but still.
[1] https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2017/11/03/why-its-getting-harder-t...
2) Establish a veeeery special AirBNB
3) Profit!
Large business also do this for company events etc.
https://www.trainchartering.com/press/news_wembley.html is one company.
I know long haul battery-electric trains don't make sense [0], but if it's a short distance, would it be feasible to have inbuilt battery + engine just to get the car to the Amtrak and maybe as backup power?
> (some tracks require a second car coupled to the locomotive so crossings & signals work correctly)
Obviously it wouldn't obviate this technicality.
> Personally I wonder why Amtrak doesn't offer a "Presidential" fare, where 6 or so people can book a private car and get truly top tier service.
Could a 3rd-party company offer this? I.e., they own and operate the Presidential-like cars, and are a contractual middle-man between Amtrak and the riders?
Fun local news fact: someone left their excavator on the tracks and one of the locomotives crashed into it Wednesday !
https://www.wgal.com/article/train-crash-at-strasburg-railro...
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/18/travel/all-aboard-for-a-t... https://railsnw.com/tours/Pullman/Rail-only-information3.htm
The economics of it are likely difficult, but there's at least precedent.
they should call it "railforce one"
The famous "Dewey defeats Truman" newspaper photo was taken on it's platform.
Could you explain a bit more about why you would want this? This seems strictly inferior to buying a box truck and converting it for "van life".
Downside is you're limited to where Amtrak goes (or having to hire a locomotive and getting permission from Union Pacific, Norfolk Southern, etc. to use their tracks)
If I wanted to go the van-life route, I'd probably order a B-Box from Advanced RV in Cleveland. They have more interior room than a Sprinter and are better insulated. Costs about the same as a railcar and currently has a year-long wait.
Van life is a first class ticket to becoming a tidbit in serial killers life story.
Also, rail rights of way are ancient, so you land in the center of major cities.
Of course, travel options are significantly broader with an RV since paved roads go everywhere. However you can't take an RV into some cities in the northeast - I know that Washington DC and Baltimore have banned them from their streets. Whereas Amtrak takes you right into the city center.
Basically, there are hobbyists who buy and upgrade these cars, and try to break even on chartering trips on them. They’re clearly never happier than coming along for the journey (you need an official liaison on board anyway to interface with Amtrak staff) and fixing stuff along the way.
And it also depends on whether they find someone to book (some subset of) the return trip that will start within a day or two of your arrival; otherwise you have to cover their Amtrak fee for the dead-head return. I’m told there’s a network of enthusiasts who watch for such possibilities. Rather, two networks, who hate each other for no discernible reason. Or that’s how I understood it, as an outsider getting a glimpse of an obscure but intense sub-culture.
We worked with Amtrak and an amazing team of train enthusiasts to get 3 vintage train cars on The California Zephyr’s route across the US. We started in Vermont and ended in Los Angeles, traveling 3,502 miles over 10 days.
Short documentary: https://youtu.be/2BID8_pGuqA
Planning documents and finances are open source at https://github.com/hackclub/the-hacker-zephyr
For anyone not wanting to read through, I found ~$160,000 in private train car payments, and somewhere around $40,000 in fees and tickets to Amtrak.
The team also really made it happen. It was incredibly difficult to organize, and every person involved went far above and beyond any normal expectation to make the Zephyr so special.
Train museums use these possibilities to run extraordinary trains [1]. Rarely you can see them as replacement trains in regular service[2].
[1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8GujoYkaQf8 [2] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qoDOXvFwH0
But the railway museum runs a historic train hourly from Utrecht Centraal (I think the largest station in the country) to their museum. That's also a strange sight to see passing by at crossings.
https://www.cruisetrain-sevenstars.jp/english/
Prices start at $4500 per person twin sharing for 4 nights, so not exactly cheap, but still a few orders of magnitude less than kitting out your own. Plus it's Japan, so you get a modern train, incredible service and everything runs like clockwork, none of those being terms you'd use to describe Amtrak.
Fun facts: you're required to wear a tuxedo to dinner, and despite the price tag, the train is enormously popular and they need to use a lottery system to select who gets to ride.
I’m sure some enterprising YouTuber/lifestyle blogger could get us started on the private train car home era. I’m here for it.
It takes place aboard the Snowpiercer train as it travels a globe-encircling track, carrying the last remnants of humanity
I don't get it. Houses become so expensive that the last remnants of humanity has to live on a train? Isn't this a "nobody goes there anymore, it's too crowded" situation?
A few years ago, they banned this practice because of these types of issues. If they're reintroducing it, get ready for more delays and more completely unreliable Amtrak service.
From https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-03-25/can-you-b...
> One year ago, Amtrak issued a policy notice saying it would make drastic cuts in operating charter services run by private owners. “These operations caused significant operational distraction, failed to capture fully allocated profitable margins, and sometimes delayed our paying customers on our scheduled trains,” read the notice from March 2018. “There may be a few narrow exceptions to this policy. ... Otherwise, one-time trips and charters are immediately discontinued.”
The documents in the link that the post is about are from 2021/2022 though. So they must have un-banned it. The "guidelines" document at https://www.amtrak.com/content/dam/projects/dotcom/english/p... lists 44 Amtrak stations throughout the US where this practice is allowed (and likely to continue to disrupt schedules for regular passengers).
It's infuriating actually. There are plenty of historic railroad societies that own track around the US where people can take their railcars to be driven around. Amtrak has a credibility problem because of its reputation for being unreliable, and this affects public perception of passenger rail transit overall and how worthwhile it is to invest in it.
Effective 3/16/20 move requests will not be accepted via fax. Email your completed form to the Special Moves Team at specialmoves@amtrak.com.
Sometime around 2018 or so, I was looking at renting a private car. Prices were all over the place, from $2k (but you had to provide your own chef (or something like that)) to $5k (chef included) for what I'd consider decent accommodations. I was wanting something big enough to fit 5-10 people to have a hackathon. There were several companies that offered this service and all of them were towed behind amtrak. But right in the middle of trying to figure all this out, amtrak announced some "changes" and that drove the cost up a bit and I think several of these companies simply closed shop or greatly reduced their service area so I dropped the idea. Splitting the charges between 5 or 10 people seemed like a fun idea though.
At one time, it was quite cheap to park a private railroad car at many downtown passenger railroad stations, because they were way underutilized and had much empty track. Not so much any more.
[1] https://www.trainsandtravel.com/2018/03/28/edict-amtrak-wont...
https://www.amtrak.com/content/dam/projects/dotcom/english/p...
You will occasionally see them parked on the siding by Symphony Park when they're playing Las Vegas.
https://www.filmscoremonthly.com/board/posts.cfm?threadID=67...
Just found some routes through the rockies, from moab to denver: https://www.rockymountaineer.com/routes_destinations , but a southwest one would be amazing.
Economics are running a cruise, but over land on a train, with some camping and motel options to scale it. Hmm...
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-03-25/can-you-b...
Employees can hop in/out on stations to start/end their shifts.
/s
In Moscow, there's a city train line called MCC (Moscow Central Circle) which you can hop on for around $1 and just sit there all day. There are power sockets and Wi-Fi, and on stations there are vending machines with snacks and coffee. It's cozy and helps concentrate on things (for me at least).
For the train geeks: the trains used there are a regional version of Siemens Desiro, called Lastochka which is Russian for the bird swallow.
You would be comfortable in your own train car and wake up in a new place every day... terribly impractical but still seems cool, haha.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Boxcar_Children
Not to be confused with the yet to be written The Bockscar Children, which would be a bleaker series altogether.
I think the Empire Builder will still be there in 2040, even if it will only be a weekly run, mostly for tourists.
post·pran·di·al | ˌpōs(t)ˈprandēəl |
adjective
formal or humorous during or relating to the period after dinner or lunch: we were jolted from our postprandial torpor.
• Medicine occurring after a meal: an annual postprandial blood glucose test.
ORIGIN
early 19th century: from post- ‘after’ + Latin prandium ‘a meal’ + -al.“I like trains.”
* First Class is around $2500/person = $20,000 for 8.
* Private jet across country is around $40-60,000"Not up for chartering your own car? Then perhaps you'd like to take part in an arranged tour. There are several vendors that offer trips on private varnishes. For example, Palm Leaf LLC is offering a week-long trip by train from Los Angeles to New Orleans for Mardi Gras. While in New Orleans you can continue to use the train as your hotel, parked right in the middle of the action. The tariff? $2,995 per person for a single room, including meals while in motion."
https://www.forbes.com/sites/tombarlow/2011/11/14/privately-...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_locomotives_of_the_21st_...
Also I’m in Western Australia… One of the two Australian projects on that page (based in Victoria) no longer has a functioning web page, which is not a good sign given the cost of a website compared to rent for a workshop big enough for a steam engine. The other project is making slow progress over the last decade building a replica of a late 19th century design which while cool and I hope they eventually finish it, doesn’t stoke the fires of my imagination enough to uproot my entire life to move closer so I can physically help make it happen.
Rail is nice here in that it’s often electric, you don’t need to focus on the road and there is more room to move around than on a plane or a car.
A really enterprising transit agency (an oxymoron there) would create The Party Bus and promote the hell out of it. Rip out all the seats and put in couches. Special lighting. Use your imagination.
Edited to add: you can, of course, also rent the modern busses and streetcars. And even subway cars!
It's pretty much only young people that hire them.
Amtrak only owns ~630 miles of tracks out of the 21,000 it uses, and basically all of that 630 is in the North East. This is definitely Amtrak's best area, although that's partially because of the amount of people going between Boston/NYC/Philadelphia/DC; the rest of the US doesn't have as many big cities that close together.
> multi-state 1000km trip
If you get on I-5 North in Los Angeles and start driving, 1000km later you'll still be in California.
Can you imagine a TGV or ICE stopping to hook up a private car?
I've seen multiple operators (some of them entirely private, some entirely state-owned corporations, some combinations) combine their trains on an EuroCity-labelled line more than a few times.
I have a friend who is working on founding his own train company and he's actually providing services to the state-owned corporations where they have him operate their wagons in his combined train, with his own locomotive. He operated a major intercity line several times this way (they use his service when there's a problem on the regular route) - and it stopped to recombine several times. I've personally been on a train ride that combined his private for-fun party wagon with an EC train.
Like a public library spending USD 50k+ per month(?) to Oracle seems outrageous to me but I guess it isn't so outrageous given the annual budget is over USD 100M?
So for a public library, you'd take 50k and multiply by 12 and get 600k/yr. Then you'd find the number of families served by the library, and divide that out. 600 families? That's 1k per family per year, too much. 6000 families? 100 per family per year, still high but not insane. 60000 families? Now we're down to $10. And if it were Chicago with 1 million families (or households which can be an easier number to find) we're at 60 cents per. Not bad.
You can do similar things at state and national levels to get a ballpark feeling. Student loan forgiveness will cost $400 billion over 30 years, let's say. There are about 122 million households, so forgiveness costs $3300 per household over 30 years, or $110 a year. At this point you can decide how much it's worth worrying about.
Uber for trains.
There, I said it.
Other than prior convictions for train robbery, I guess.
Luckily Europe has high speed rail which does not allow your friend's party wagon to disrupt the schedule. You might imagine a TGV or ICE picking it up, but I don't think it will ever happen.
BTW so far my friend's train was never delayed by his own fault, not sure what problem you're talking about - there's no problem, his train had usually the lowest priority (it costs money to have higher priority) so he's the one waiting for "normal" trains.
When I said there are delays, I meant the "normal" trains primarily. But sure, as he increases operation it's going to happen to him too.
Improve schedule planning and Amtrak won't have problems too.
Where I live you can park on the street for 48 hours. I suspect, however, that you can’t sleep there. You would get a knock at the very least. So, I’ve considered an incognito van that looks like a work truck. But, I wonder if you could just pop up a roof tent and sleep wherever.
I’m mostly talking about city center here. As an example, I’d love to do this in neighborhoods in CA (where locals are already street parking).
In a Walmart parking lot, yeah. I generally use Austin as my base, and in Austin, people sleep in normal tents all over the place. Rarely are they kicked out. If you're trying to park in a well-to-do neighborhood, it's possible you'll get called out for it, but quite likely if you're quiet and clean and gone the next day no one will say anything. Often, I see the big recreational vans when I'm traveling. People park them and sleep in them everywhere. As long as you're not staying multiple nights in a row in the same place, you're generally not going to bother anyone (they will usually assume you're just resting from travel).
But honestly, state & national parks are usually the way to go, particularly for tents. Sometimes it's free, sometimes it's a $5 per night honor system deposit envelope, occasionally it's a park ranger registration, depending on the location. And you don't always have to travel far off a main highway to get to a decent campsite, there's tons of spots if you look.
You won't find much downtown, but get out just a little and there are options.
Reading a book in your train cabin or the bar/lounge is nice enough, but so is parking somewhere with a view and the windows open, and lazing around on the bed/couch in your bus/van. e.g., we recently free-camped on the rim of a canyon: https://www.instagram.com/p/CkSY_0IODqd/
The best option IMO is a mid-scale (100pax) expedition cruise like this: https://coralexpeditions.com/au/destinations/the-kimberley/k... You get a larger room, amazing changing scenery often from a private balcony, superior expeditions, catered meals, science lectures, etc. It is superb, if you can justify paying the $1k/night - similar pricepoint to the rail trips.
Edit: apparently this comment, or something immediately before, was so objectionable that I got a temp ban. God knows what is going on with that.
The train/cruise trips I linked have been free/contra as I'm a photographer, but in each case I've largely had the same experience as a passenger, just without feeling a need to measure my enjoyment against the cost. The Kimberley trip with Coral Expeditions is comfortably at the top - you're in and out of inlets and amongst islands so the views are always interesting and changing, the landings via Zodiacs are to beautiful/historic places. Catered meals, drinks with views, cloudless weather every day, adventurous and interesting people to meet and eat with at meals. The optional afternoon lectures might be about exploration history, indigenous art, animals and environments, by seriously experienced guides. There's more variety in strolling the ship - bridge and engine room tours as well. And 100pax is a great size because you know everyone by name by the end, unless you've tried to avoid it you've had a meal with everyone including the captain, etc.
Of the Journey Beyond trips, Great Southern is the best of the two I've done. Same train as The Ghan, but it's a newer trip so the off-train wine/dine is ramped up and impressive (we photographed the second-ever trip and had the designer of the route/locations along with us). The food and drink is relentless - you eat and drink at wineries, lunch in an old gaol, out beside the beach, amongst mountains, etc. On train, you're typically in the dining carriage (2-4 person tables), the bar/lounge where you can meet other passengers, or in your small room. The base cabin is a couch which turned into a top/bottom bunk; higher class option has a queen murphy bed. On those trains, not a single window in the passenger areas is openable, so it's a bit stuffier.
The cruise rooms were far larger, king-size beds, excellent en suites, a completely comfortable and usable desk, balcony, etc. Lying on the bed with a book or working at the desk with the balcony doors open to the breeze and passing ocean was just serene. At meals, there were tables for 4-10 people and you'd just ask to join any available spots; even for an introvert, you inevitably meet interesting people. The sorts of people who are on a $1k/night expedition cruise are typically well-travelled, have interesting jobs, etc. Over 60 meals, even the dullest people I sat with were a decent, friendly couple who I was happy to talk with.
The rail trips are great, but feel a bit more contained and herded. 2-3 nights feels like it's over quite quickly too. Both formats typically attract older clientele, though there were solo 40-50s on our trips, and I find all ages fun to engage with anyway. Meals on the rail trip were probably better; The Ghan actually does a nice thing where the meals are relevant to the area you're passing through. So as you leave South Australia you're eating seafood but by the time you're in the Northern Territory, it's barramundi, macadamias, mango, buffalo, etc.
That said, in this case, I wasn't sleep out in the middle of a forest but I do have friends who do it more camping style and they haven't had issues.
I guess it is all just luck of the draw (or some say, karma).
One example that comes to my mind is prisoner transports. I have seen a prisoner car (which cannot be passed through by passengers or crew, it has no doors at the ends) in front of cab car. In that sense, the cab car is being used as a normal passenger car, of course in the rear end of the train.
So, if Amtrak values private cars and privacy in such cars enough I think they can find a solution without people passing through. If the schedules require faster turnarounds, one low-tech solution is not selling tickets to the cab car.
So basically a caboose? Albeit more sophisticated.
The new trainsets are the Siemens Venture cars. Brightline in Florida is already running a version of them - their cars are set up for high platforms only (all their stations have high platforms). The Amtrak cars will work with both high & low platforms, as the older stations on their network still have low platforms (passengers need to step up into the cars)
https://www.trains.com/trn/news-reviews/news-wire/first-look...
Like the CTA (and the South Shore) trains - every single pair could be be the lead. They all have a spot for a driver (engineer?)
As for Samba, Gnome has good client built in to the file browser. But I'd have to ask why you're using Samba at all. There are much better network filesystems in the Linux world that don't come with all the legacy cruft and undocumented idiosyncrasies that are part of the SMB protocol. They're harder to set up on Windows, but that shouldn't be a problem if you standardize on Linux.
Same reason why rich people open up their gardens and dining halls and art collections to the public from time to time - to show off.
https://www.greisinger.museum/
I found it extremely interesting. Not because of the Tolkien lore but because it gave me a sneak peek into how someone really rich is living.
Actually with modern clouds like OneDrive it's not about files at all, I haven't seen network drives being used for a decade. It's about privileges to various resources available within the corporate network and about what you can't do with your work computer, and about having the computer auto-configure to play with all the resources on corporate network.
It's about setting detailed access level based on AD groups - including user applications, not just networked drives or whatever. Permissions to CRM/ERP systems, document management systems etc. Detailed as much as "this user can only see contracts and invoices assigned to the London branch".
I open my computer and I immediately see the printer that's nearest to me as the first printer in the list. Access to it is authenticated and authorized (with no additional password prompts). I can simply choose a document from SharePoint and send it right there, walk over there and slap my chip card on it and have it printed. It's part of my system's print queue but if I switch computers in the meantime I can still work with the queue item there.
I scan a document and it goes directly to my OneDrive which is automatically connected to whatever computer I sit at as soon as I log in, regardless of me using a random terminal that's been sitting in whatever office I'm visiting.
I'm unable to break anything because there is no root to login to, nobody ever uses sudo on the computer, nobody ever needs admin privileges on it (harder to do with devs but common for all other professions). If an app needs to be added the computer is remotely reimaged from an image with the app added (this requires a one-setting change by the admin, nothing else). No user settings or files go missing in the process.
Corporate VPN, firewall, proxy servers, wifi network, wired network - all of it requires auth. The system just takes my user certificate and just works with it all by itself. Nothing is available without auth, nothing is unencrypted.
Building this kind of system with Microsoft products is as easy as installing a few apps on the corporate server machine. I literally learned how to do it when I was 12 and couldn't speak English yet.
Building it with Linux - well I am pretty skilled with Linux admin (as much as you'd expect someone who used it as their primary system for 15 years and hosts their own websites etc) but I can't even imagine where to begin.
Using puppeteer to connect to individual machines and turn options there - that's crazy. Enterprise Windows are fully declarative. And using separate systems to manage Windows/Mac and Linux - that's crazy. Apple is doing what it can to support MS AD - if Linux wants to be a special case, it's going to remain a special case.