All Aboard the Orient Express

All Aboard the Orient Express

Eight incredible rail journeys that take you to Hell and the Outback

For years I have been traveling the great rail lines as a life-long lover of a rapidly disappearing way of looking at the world. Here is a highly subjective listing of some of my favorites, based on the scenery outside, the service inside, and the ever-intangible “romance factor.”

The California Zephyr – Chicago to Oakland

The original California Zephyr of 1949 was conceived as a cruise train – the journey was just as important as the destination and took 8 to 10 hours longer than the competition. Its successor continues that tradition by scheduling the three-day trip to time the best scenery with daylight hours, leaving Chicago in the afternoon and arriving in Denver the following morning so you wake up to see the breathtaking beauty of the Rockies. Along the way in the passage through the Sierra Nevada and a fine view of San Francisco Bay. It offers Amtrak's largest helping of scenery.

The Cariboo Dayliner – British Columbia, Canada

The fourteen-hour trip from North Vancouver to Prince George includes some spectacular and seldom-seen scenery through the Coast Mountains and up the Fraser River Valley. For a day trip, travelers can get off in Lillooet to return to North Vancouver by sunset. BC Rail runs the trains daily in the summer and three times a week in the winter. The cars are not particularly luxurious, but their enormous windows allow the scenery to work its magic. Reserved seats include a meal.

A train! Photo by Elena.

Copper Canyon – Mexico

This line along the edge of Mexico's spectacular Copper Canyon (for times the size of the Grand Canyon) and through the Sierra Madre was proposed at the turn of the XXth century as a short route from Kansas City to the Pacific and completed 60 years and one revolution later. The 14-hour trip includes a 15-minute stop to view the rugged canyon bottom. Stay overnight in Los Mochis for the return trip, or – if you are ambitious – make the somewhat unpredictable trip overland and by ferry to Baja California.

Indian Pacific – Sydney to Perth, Australia

This three-days trip covers 2,720 miles, from the Pacific through the Blue Mountains west of Sidney and across the outback to Perth and the Indian Ocean. Most of the journey is spent in the austere beauty of the Nullarbor Plains, where one stretch of track goes 297 miles without a curve. Passengers can kivk back in luxuriosly refurbished lounge cars as they watch wild kangaroos leap across the outback. One of the attractions is going completely across something.

The Oslo-Trondheim-Bodo-Narvik – Norway

Surprisingle enough, Hell is located near the Arctic Circle. It is a small town nestle in the Dover Mountains of Norway, just a few miles from Trondheim and not nearly as unpleasant as its namesake. Norwegian State Railways operates several day trains and a night train through the mountains. The scenery is austere, but the trains are comfortable and well-equipped. Sharp-eyed travelers may sight the occasional musk ox.

Rhaetian Railway Benina Line – The Swiss Alpa

This train descends some 4,000 feet as it makes its way from Chur, Switzerland, across the Benrina Pass and into Tirano, Italy – all without the reassuring traction that cog railways offer. It is the highest crossing of the Alps by any rail line. The train itself is not particularly exciting, but the scenery is unsurpassed. There is no dining car, but travelers have about an hour in Italy to buy ice cream before the return trip. Eurail passes are valid, or travelers can make reservations at any Swiss train station. The express line travels each way once a day. Book through a travel agent or call the rail line in Switzerland for details.

The Trans-Siberian Railway – Moscow to Vladivostok

A seven-day journey into the Far East on the world's longest continuous rail line. Of the regular trains on this route, the Rossiya is the best. It's not luxurious, but it does offer sleeping berths and a dining car. The entire trip can exhausting, so you may want to take it in bits and pieces. A consortium of Eastern and Western businessmen have put together a charter train, called the Rhythm, that runs the same route on occasion and offers world-class dinging and the height of luxury. The best part of the trip is finding out that a country that was once absolutely forbidden is absolutely beautiful.

Venice Simplon-Orient-Express – Paris to Budapest or Venice

Perhaps the ultimate experience in pampered land travel, on of the most famous of train lines. Murder is rare, but fine dining and classic details like posh, overstuffed upholstery are not. The cars have been restored so authentically that most of them do not have air conditioning, so you may want to avoid travel during the hottest months. The dining car service is that of a four-star restaurant. Uniformed gold-braided stewards will go out of their way to make your trip a comfortable one. We recommend the southbound line for scenery, but you should take the trip for what's inside the windows.