12 Terrific Train Trips

By Valerie Marchant; Emily Mitchell; Megan Rutherford; Janet Kang; Francine Russo; Adrianne Navon; Jane Holligan; Uki Goni

Airplanes are faster, automobiles more adaptable. Yet more and more Americans--a 17% rise in the past four years--are choosing to take their vacations on the railroad. While some trains are not yet up to European standards of luxury and convenience, rail tours in Canada and the Americas offer reasonable comfort, good food and some spectacular scenery. Here are some of the options:

VIA RAIL ACROSS CANADA LOFTY MOUNTAIN PEAKS THAT SMILE DOWN ON YOU

In 1886, a year after the last spike was laid on the railway that joined the Dominion of Canada from coast to coast, the Prime Minister's wife, Lady Macdonald, traveled across the new country. For 600 miles of the trip she sat in a candle box attached to the cowcatcher on the front end of the train. There she was thrilled by "the novelty, the excitement and the fun of this mad ride...with magnificent mountains before and around me, their lofty peaks smiling down on us, and never a frown on their grand faces." More than a century later, the Rockies still smile down on passengers traveling across Canada aboard VIA Rail's Canadian, which now takes a more northerly route through British Columbia and Alberta.

Train buffs consider this 2,750-mile, three-day, five-province journey one of the best in the world because of the train's refurbished Art Deco-style cars and first-rate service and the stunning scenery. Owen Hardy, president of the Society of International Railway Travelers, praises the Canadian as "a classic example of the elegant modern trains rolled out by the private railroads in their last-ditch battle against the automobile and interstate highways."

Three days a week, year-round, the train travels between Vancouver and Toronto, stopping in Jasper, Edmonton, Saskatoon and Winnipeg. A Silver & Blue ticket, which costs from $747 to $2,128, includes sleeping accommodations, meals and exclusive use of the Park Car with its dome section and lounges (www.viarail.ca, 888-VIARail). --By Valerie Marchant

ROCKY MOUNTAINEER RAILTOURS FIRST-RATE SERVICE, HEART-STOPPING SCENERY

On any of 30 different trips and tours offered by Rocky Mountaineer Railtours, you travel in daylight hours so that you don't miss any of the heart-stopping scenery. Choose the GoldLeaf Service because you'll be assigned a seat in the dome car, which offers a 360[degrees] view of some of the most dramatic sights in the world, and you'll eat in a first-class dining room with picture windows. You can stand on an open-air observation platform at the rear of the train, the wind on your face and moose, bear, eagles, bighorn sheep and mountain goats in your view.

Last summer Lloyd Abert of St. Louis, Mo., judged the Rocky Mountaineer tour he took with his family (including his 84-year-old mother) one of the best of his life. "What they provided," he said, "was a dream far beyond any expectations. The service was extraordinary. I don't know of a person who wasn't happy on that train." So appreciative of the scenery was his family that they took more than 700 photos.

Another tempting trip the company introduced this year, the Sea to Sky Rail Adventure, is a 10-day journey from Vancouver to Kamloops. You can book it from May through October; rates run from $1,900 to $2,700 and include rail travel, accommodations in hotels along the way, meals on the train, tours and travel by motor coach to connecting routes. The train crosses the remote interior of British Columbia, passes pristine lakes, mighty rivers and famous ice fields. It goes through snow-peaked mountain ranges, thick forests and numerous national parks www.rockymountaineer.com 800-665-7245). --V.M.

AMERICAN ORIENT EXPRESS OUT OF A GOLDEN ERA

The elegant paneled dining car, its tables covered with crisp linen and set with silver, china and glassware, comes from another, golden era of train travel, but it is alive and well aboard the American Orient Express, the only private luxury train in North America. From March through November this year, you can choose from five regional itineraries or select a transcontinental rail journey, either from Washington to Los Angeles or across Canada between Vancouver and Montreal. The cost ranges from $2,490 to $6,990. There's a saving of $300 if you reserve six months in advance.

Along the way, executive chef Anthony Hubbard purchases fresh ingredients for menus reflecting each area's cuisine. He researched the impeccable way food was served on the trains of the past and, he says, "incorporated some of that." The 15 vintage cars, built during the streamliner decade that began in 1948, have been restored (at a cost of $15 million) and recall the splendor of Europe's Orient Express. Sleeping cars are outfitted in mahogany and brass, and a pianist plays in the club car during the cocktail hour. All that's missing is Cary Grant www.americanorientexpress.com 888-759-3944). --By Emily Mitchell

IN THE PATH OF LEWIS & CLARK ARMCHAIR PIONEERING BY ROAD AND RAIL

For their corps of discovery, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark selected men with grit and guts. Both qualities were put to the test: the group battled rattlesnakes and grizzlies, suffered boils and dysentery, portaged canoes up hills and through rocky ravines, and were reduced to eating dogs and horses in the course of their 28-month, 8,000-mile trek to chart the western wilderness.

Two hundred years later, you can re-live that historic exploration--without the danger or the dogmeat--by taking the seven-day rail-and-road tour "In the Path of Lewis and Clark." Traveling part of the way by motor coach and the remainder aboard the American Spirit--a daylight train with refurbished passenger cars and vista domes from the late '40s and '50s--you set out from Billings, Mont., and end up near Astoria, Ore., journeying through large swaths of Lewis and Clark territory in between. You will cross the rugged Bitterroot Mountains, where the corps nearly starved; navigate the Clearwater River in canoes like those used by the expedition; stop at the Nez Perce National Historic Park to learn about the Native Americans who befriended the explorers; and visit a replica of Fort Clatsop, which sheltered the bedraggled group during the cold, wet winter of 1805-06.

Sacagawea was the interpreter for Lewis and Clark; Hal Stearns fills that role on the American Spirit. Stearns is a master yarn spinner who has spent much of his life collecting Lewis and Clark lore and artifacts. A devout believer in his subject--"Along with man going to the moon in 1969, this is one of the two greatest explorations in American history," he says--he plans to use his knowledge to convert all aboard www.americanspiritrail.com 888-533-7245). --By Megan Rutherford

MEXICO'S COPPER CANYON FROM THE DESERT UP TO THE RIM OF A CANYON

Refurbished World War II-era Pullman cars twist and turn from the sea-level Sonoran Desert to 8,000 ft. along the rim of Copper Canyon, crossing 39 bridges and plunging through 86 tunnels. Those who know this route from Los Mochis to Chihuahua, Mexico, rate it as one of the last great American wilderness areas south of the Arctic Circle. With stops at Divisadero and Creel, the Sierra Madre Express allows you to visit the Tarahumara Indians, distant relatives of the Aztecs and one of Mexico's last truly primitive people.

A fleet of five railcars make up the Sierra Madre Express. From the train's dome car, called the Tucson, and the Divisadero car, an open observation deck, you can gaze upon rivers with rushing waterfalls as well as lush bird life and wildflowers. For the eight-day, seven-night excursion, prices begin at $2,545, and you sleep two nights aboard plush, vintage cars with names like the Arizona and the Chile Verde. On remaining nights, you stay in Tucson, Ariz., and Divisadero and Cerocahui in Mexico.

For less money, you can opt for the Mexican American Railway Co.'s $1,599 South Orient Express, a five-day, four-night "cruise on rails," as M.A.R.C. vice president Bill Brailey calls it. The South Orient Express includes five-course international lunches prepared by a master chef, but does not provide sleeping accommodations. A cheaper and unescorted version, Copper Canyon Limited, costs $1,100 for eight days and seven nights and allows you to customize your itinerary www.sierramadreexpress.com 800-666-0346; www.southorientexpress.com 800-659-7602). --By Janet Kang. With reporting by Ronald Buchanan

BC RAIL'S ROYAL HUDSON A HANDSOME STEAM ENGINE FROM CANADA'S PAST

King George VI and his wife Queen Elizabeth were so pleased with the Hudson locomotive on the train that carried them across Canada on their 1939 royal tour that they granted the title Royal to a group of Hudson locomotives. One of these, Locomotive 2860, traveled proudly through British Columbia for 16 years before it was forced off the tracks by diesel engines. Rescued from the Winnipeg scrap yards by the government of British Columbia, 2860 was refurbished in 1974 and is now the only steam engine in regular mainline service in North America. Tom Savio, a former stationmaster and now a rail-travel consultant, says the black-and-silver locomotive, which "blends Canadian robustness and English Art Deco streamlining," is "one of the most aesthetically pleasing ever built." During the spring and summer months, 2860 pulls a string of vintage passenger cars along tracks that hug the top of a cliff 100 ft. above Howe Sound, north of Vancouver. The 80-mile round trip, much of it poised over the water below, offers views of pretty islands, the Strait of Georgia, lush forests, a span of glaciers, coastal mountains that sweep into the sea and waterfalls so close you can almost touch them. The trip, says Savio, is "on the short list of the most beautiful in North America." Be sure to book the parlor class (for about $57), where you will eat well in a dining room, relax in a club car and gaze out picture windows. From May through September, Wednesday through Sunday, the train leaves North Vancouver at 10 a.m. and returns at 4 p.m., with a two-hour stopover in Squamish, where 60 vintage railway cars and locomotives are on view in the West Coast Railway Heritage Park. If you like, you can travel one way of the journey through Howe Sound on the M.V. Britannia www.bcrail.com./bcrpass 800-663-8238). --V.M.

PACIFIC NORTHWEST ON THE WATER--ALMOST

This sleek new European-built train may be the best--and cheapest--way to see the Pacific Northwest. Subsidized by the states of Oregon and Washington, the nine-hour trip costs only $44 for coach, and you can buy segments (Portland to Seattle costs $21). With current schedules, you need to stay overnight in Seattle, but that means you can sight-see and sample local salmon washed down by a tangy microbrew. You can bring your bike along, at least as far as the Canadian border, stowing it on one of the Cascades' bicycle racks ($5 extra; reserve ahead), so you can tool around cycle-friendly Portland or Seattle.

The Cascades, built for ultrahigh speeds, can do only 79 m.p.h. on existing tracks, but its pendular suspension means it doesn't have to slow down going around curves--of which this route has many. For much of the way, you skirt the shores of the lovely Willamette, Columbia and Toutle rivers. The view gets even more spectacular as you follow the coastline of the vast and misty Puget Sound. So close to the water do you ride that you often feel you're not on a train at all but on a boat, with blue water and skies as far as you can see. While you're being served breakfast or lunch on white linen tablecloths in the dining car, you can see gulls and great blue herons wheeling close by, ducks paddling in the marshes and even furry, bewhiskered sea otters that frolic in the water and clamber up the beach toward you. If the day is clear, you can catch glimpses of Mount Hood and Mount Rainier, and you'll pass forests of fir and cedar. For man-made wonders, look for the formidable container ships in Seattle's harbor and the giant Boeing plant. Whether you travel north or south on the Cascades, be sure to nab a waterside seat www.amtrakcascades.com 800-USA-RAIL). --By Francine Russo

OVERLAND TRAIL CLICKETY-CLACK BACK TO A MORE GRACIOUS PAST If there is a time machine that allows you to relive the days when going by rail meant going in style, when women dressed up and wore gloves and men sported fedoras and suits with wide lapels, it is the Overland Trail, a 1939 club lounge car that was once a part of the Southern Pacific streamliner that ran from Oakland, Calif., to Chicago. Owners Bill and Debbie Hatrick of Santa Ana, Calif., have restored the car to its original condition and made it available for private parties and public excursions.

This year the Overland Trail will travel with a regular Amtrak train every second Saturday, starting May 13 and ending Dec. 9. The round trips will all originate in Oakland, with either Los Angeles or Santa Barbara as the destination, and fares will range from $125 to $595. Hors d'oeuvres will be served on the short runs, complete meals on longer trips. On the June 17 ride to Los Angeles, passengers will be asked to pay homage to the '40s by dressing in the fashions of that era.

Going along for the ride on every trip is Earl Nickles, a train buff and local barber who'll give you an on-train trim for a $5 donation. Most of the streamliners of yesteryear had barbershops, Nickles explains. They were "an amenity for business travelers from the '30s to the late '50s. It was all part of the time when train travel was gracious" www.overlandtrail.com 800-KEY-RAIL). --E.M.

CUMBRES & TOLTEC A REAL ROCKY MOUNTAIN RAILROAD HIGH

In the opening scene of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, young Indy gallops toward a smoke-billowing circus train and leaps aboard. That engine and those tracks are part of the Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad, a Hollywood favorite and the highest and longest narrow-gauge railroad in the U.S. But seeing it onscreen doesn't compare with riding it firsthand, as 70,000 tourists and train buffs do each year.

The C&TS, built in the 1880s as part of a rail empire connecting commercial outposts and mining camps, cuts a meandering 64-mile-long swath through frontier history along the mountainous border between Colorado and New Mexico. From Memorial Day weekend to mid-October, steam-driven locomotives, restored to mint condition and fired by tons of hand-stoked coal, maneuver around bends and across streambeds and pant up grades as steep as 4% on a track measuring just 36 in. between the rails.

Two trains depart each morning from opposite ends of the line and meet in the middle. One begins a rugged northeastern climb out of Chama, N.M., crosses two 100-ft.-high trestles and wends through the high point, Cumbres Pass (elevation 10,015 ft). The second locomotive fires up in Antonito, Colo., and chugs southwest. It threads through two 360-ft.-long tunnels, one of which was blasted out of 1.7 billion-year-old rock a dizzying 600 ft. above Toltec Gorge. You won't find a carload of snakes like the one Indiana Jones encountered. But do keep your eyes open for deer, black bear, bobcat, mountain lion and eagles.

The trains rendezvous in Osier, a ghost town accessible only by rail or dirt road. As crews prepare the historic trains for their return descents, you can relax and drink in the mountain views over lunch, before reboarding to return to your starting point or switching trains to continue your journey to the opposite point www.cumbrestoltec.com 888-CUMBRES). --By Adrianne Navon

PERU DAY TRIPS SLOW TRAIN FROM CUZCO

The main streets of Cuzco, the majestic Inca capital of Peru, are still slumbering in the half-light between dawn and day as minibuses and taxis take tourists to the small San Pedro rail station. There, behind the chaotic stalls of the city market, crowds jostle in the entrance waiting for the three services that run from Cuzco to the famed Inca citadel of Machu Picchu. The most comfortable and costly of the three services is the one-stop, 3 1/4-hour Inca service that leaves Cuzco at 6:15 a.m. daily for Machu Picchu. For railroad buffs, this 70-mile Cuzco-to-Machu Picchu line--another of the few remaining narrow-gauge passenger services still operating in the world--is one of the great rail experiences.

The other train ride from Cuzco departs from Wanchac station and is memorable more for the railway experience itself. The diesel train sways as it chugs bravely for more than 10 hours through the thin air of the altiplano that links Cuzco with Puno near the Bolivian border. You can see herds of huddled alpacas and women in layers of skirts and bright shawls as the train ambles by. Halfway along the 239-mile Cuzco-to-Puno trip, it crosses the highest point of any standard-gauge passenger train service in the world at La Raya, 14,172 ft. above sea level (011-51-84-238722, or fax 011-51-84-222114). --By Jane Holligan

NAPA VALLEY WINE TRAIN DAY-TRIPPING ON THE BACCHANALIAN EXPRESS

The French proverb "a day without wine is like a day without sunshine" fits the Napa Valley to a T. Even on the rare cloudy days, there's plenty of sunshine aboard the Napa Valley Wine Train, a 10-year-old cruise ship on land that offers white-linen dining--and plenty of the local agricultural product--on a three-hour rail voyage through the heart of California's famed wine country.

The multisensory experience begins even before the train pulls out of the Napa depot, with an art show and a complimentary wine-tasting seminar. Then you climb onboard for the feast. As the train rolls at a peaceful pace past 27 wineries and manicured vineyards, passengers can sip local Chardonnays, Cabernet Sauvignons, Pinot Noirs or other premium varietals as they dine in luxuriously refurbished Pullman cars, vintage 1915-70. Executive chef Patrick Finney's menu may include filet mignon marinated in red wine and herbs and served with Cabernet-Roquefort sauce. Those who are into food as much as wine are invited by Chef Finney to stroll down to the mahogany-paneled galley and look into the kitchen, where his crew does its thing. And of course there is the train's nucleus, the wine-tasting car, where you can learn more about the featured beverages and other Napa Valley attractions before you return to your starting point.

Brunch, lunch or dinner costs between $29.50 and $99; the wine is extra. Special onboard events include Sunday jazz concerts, vintners' luncheons with wines paired with each gourmet course, murder-mystery dinner theater, family-fun nights and holiday celebrations www.winetrain.com 800-427-4124). --A.N.

THE OLD PATAGONIAN EXPRESS GIVING NEW MEANING TO THE IDEA OF A BOOK TOUR

Ever since the Old Patagonian Express rose to fame from the pages of Paul Theroux's 1979 best seller, this narrow-gauge line in southern Argentina has been a Mecca for steam-train lovers. "We're still running the same original engines from the year 1922," says El Maiten stationmaster Marcelo Ballerini. "Tourists arrive from all over the world to ride it." Threatened with extinction at various times during recent years, this fully steam-operated line running across the dry Patagonian steppes has been kept alive by Theroux's readers and a few locals who still board it along the way.

Known in Argentina as La Trochita (from trocha angosta, or "narrow gauge"), the old carriages run through the foothills of the majestic Andes mountain range. The El Maiten-Esquel run is a 6 1/2-hour ride through breathtaking scenery, with the majestic peaks of the snowcapped Andes in view part of the way. As much fun as the scenery is the train itself. Visitors can stand alongside the engineer as he operates the brakes and the burner on the steep grades along the way. For the less daring there are two shorter rides, El Maiten-Vuelta al Rio and Esquel-Nahuel Pan, each 31 miles long. You can avoid cancellations due to snow by booking Argentine spring and summer trips--when it's fall and winter in the U.S. (El Maiten train station: 011-54-2945-49-5190). --By Uki Goni

With reporting by Ronald Buchanan