Just wanted to ask everyone here what your favourite passenger train is or was.
MIne was a trip I took on B.C. Rail back in April 1989, from North Vancouver to Prince George return. The scenery was fantastic on the entire trip especially at Howe Sound. We even had to stop north of Quesnel for a black bear eating grain on the track bed.
A close second is the E&N Dayliner on Vancouver Island. Great scenery and a good way of spending a day.
Hot weather. Hornet nest time. You've opened it.
Favorite train or favorite train ride? Favorite train flat out: DL&W's Phoebe Snow. Favorite ride...hard, hard, hard to say. The Sunday night in the summer of 1963 when I missed a train and got to ride a deadhead move with EL employee friends out of Hoboken, NJ. Four GP7's, two open vestibule, open window DL&W commuter cars, no lights, backwards, non stop and fast out of the shed on track one at the terminal...slowed down in the Oranges to let one or two off, then again at Denville, NJ to let me and employee friend jump off....40 minute instead of over 60 minute normal time! Or perhaps it should be the LIRR former 4:54PM out of Long Island City to Jamaica and Oyster Bay over the Lower Montauk. Today only the mornng inbound train traverses this track as a revenue run...double and single track, PRR position light signals, hand operated gates and switches in the LIC yard, abandoned station platforms, Fresh Pond Jct. and yard, harborside, industrial buildings, inner city housing, rail yards, deep in Forest HIlls Park, nice duplex housing, then Morris Park yard and Jamaica...all in 20 minutes! Too bad can't do this one anymore either. Then the last B&M passenger run from Springfield, MA to Greenfield and back...Feb. 1968...one Budd car, 70MPH for the last time for the engineer. Tons of other best train rides, too.
RIDEWITHMEHENRY is the name for our almost monthly day of riding trains and transit in either the NYCity or Philadelphia areas including all commuter lines, Amtrak, subways, light rail and trolleys, bus and ferries when warranted. No fees, just let us know you want to join the ride and pay your fares. Ask to be on our email list or find us on FB as RIDEWITHMEHENRY (all caps) to get descriptions of each outing.
I appreciate the comment concerning the Victoria-Courtenay service. Nine years ago, my wife and I made the round trip, and I took several pictures. I was showing them to a friend who asked why we made that trip--did we know anybody up there? etc. He obviously knew nothing of traveling to see what is along the line or simply to be riding the line. He was a successful businessman, but travel for the sake of travel was utterly alien to him.
Johnny
The Rocky Mountaineer train from Calgary to Vancouver with an overnight at Kamloops, BC. An excellent land cruise. Superb staff, excellent food, and an all around pleasurable experience.
But most importantly, it transverses the still living evidence of one of the most important construction jobs ever undertaken in the world.
For me though, on Mother's Day weekend 1999 with my Mom, it was the chance to see the Lake Louise, AB station, and the site of Stephen, BC, from a train. And seeing the Stony Creek bridge from a dome car completed one of the items on my Bucket List, even before anyone knew what a Bucket List was.
Bruce
So shovel the coal, let this rattler roll.
"A Train is a Place Going Somewhere" CP Rail Public Timetable
"O. S. Irricana"
. . . __ . ______
Favorite train in the east: The Adirondack from NY to Montreal. 100+miles along the Hudson River thru the Hudson Highlands and then almost as long along Lake Champlain with the train's namesake mountains on the other side.
In the west: The Zephyr thru the Rockies and the Sierras via the historic Moffat and Donner Pass lines.
Favorite individual trip was a cab ride over Veta Pass on the San Luis & Rio Grande Scenic. It gave me a new appreciation of mountain railroading.
The OP nailed it--see my avatar!
The NYC/D&H Montreal Limited, the night train from NYC to Montreal. Watching the Hudson and Lake Champlain glide by under the moonlight.
C&NW, CA&E, MILW, CGW and IC fan
[quote user="MidlandMike"]
Ditto...fantastic scenery.
I've always been partial to service so The Broad Way Limited gets my vote. (OK, my spelling of 'Broad Way' is archaic but that's the way PRR spelled it originally because it then referred to the Broad Way of Four Tracks from New York to Chicago.)
ChuckAllen, TX
My favorite would have to be the UP City of St. Louis, since I rode it 3 times. It linked up with SP at Ogden, Utah and our cars were transferred to make the run to San Francisco, across the Great Salt Lake and over Donner Pass.
I also rode the original California Zephyr returning home with a tour group. Didn't realize I was riding a legend at the time.
Another good run was UP City of Los Angeles all-Pullman train. Friends & I were able to ride it from LA to Ogden, because we had booked a bedroom and qualified.
And the memorable steam trips pulled by CB&Q #4960 in IL and MO with my parents. I did get to ride behind her again on the Grand Canyon Railway and it was like seeing an old friend.
Even though Dad worked for Frisco, we only rode the Sunnyland to Memphis and also an employee special to Ste. Genevieve on the same train. Also with a RR club to Salem, MO on a line that had not seen passenger traffic for years. So I spent more time riding other railroads than I did the "home" one.
I forgot to mention the CP Canadian and CN Super-Continental. Scenery was awesome on both lines.
Well, I doubt that tourist trains were intended to be included but the Cumbres & Toltec ride from Chama, NM to Antonito, CO., is in my view the best train ride in America. About three hours of double headed coal fired steam climbing the east slope is train riding at its peak. Of course you must like soot, smoke and often rain. A great buffet lunch at Osier, CO is part of the deal and the downward cruise to Antonito is a good time to nap.
Let me think. I'm sure it will come to me.
Dave
Lackawanna Route of the Phoebe Snow
Mine has to be the Coast Daylight from San Francisco to Los Angeles. You start out in flat country then run through the coast range and drop down north of Santa Barbara. Southbound we came down and ran along the ocean through Vandenburg Air Force Base as the sun was setting over the pacific ocean. I will never forget it. It was absoltely spectacular ,
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