Train travel! Any special or spectacular trips?

Have travelled extensively up and down the West Coast, mostly in the US, but as far as Vancouver, BC, to LA (though not at one time). Good times were had aboard the Coast Starlight, which still runs, though it's notoriously late. Late night booze runs to the bar car when they've announced they're running out, meeting new folks, great memories.

I still take those trains, though not for really long trips, and the scenery in Washington, especially Commencement Bay, is stunning.

D'artagnan

Sounds good. A friend travelled in your area last year (by car, rather than train, though ) and just raved about it.

The advantage of trains - or 2 advantages: - you can watch the scenery as you go (unless you're that fellow at the front!) and - you can have a drink while doing it. What could be better!

One of the real travel pleasures!!

Are there many long distance trains in US now? I understand they're nowhere near as popular as Europe.

The dozens of museum-railways in Germany are very pretty ... for daytrips, however, only.

Going from Cologne to Francfort on the left Rhine site is phantastic - fast trains don't run there normally. (The trains along the Ahr and Moselle river are phantastic, too!)

In the 70's I liked to travel in (West-)Germany with trains from the GDR: funny, pre-1950 interior, drinks and food from the East ... .

Has anyone been on that train trip between (I think) Oslo and Bergen? Is it worth trying? Reports?

Hi margo

Yes, have done the Oslo to Bergen train trip. Great scenery!
And it was a lovely trip, too! I was befriended by 2 little old ladies who took as much delight in my responses to the scenery as I did by what I saw!

MsOlga

I was having a look at that trip on the 'net! Do you recall how much it was? Should go and seriously research things, instead of mucking about! Thinking of a few days in Norway.

Price: about 650 NKr

http://www.nsb.no/internet/en/index.jhtml

Thanks, Walter,

And I know how much that is in real money! I found this website today that gave me great exchange conversions - Yikes - that's about $140 OzDollars!

Looks good though@

I took the whole family for a ride on the Zig Zag Railway last weekend (mystery tour, the real excitment is whether I' going to abandon them all in the Blue Mountains... well YOU try navigating a car full of children under 7 to Lithgow and back when they spend half the damn trip wanting to go to Macdonalds and the other half tormenting their baby sister!)

Results of survey of passengers under 5 feet tall:
-'I don't want to get on this thing'
-'If you leave the carriage I am gonna scream'
-'I am gonna scream no matter what, for 90 minutes, yeah 90 goddam minutes. Call THIS a treat?!'
-'I am the boy in the next row of seats. My parents bought me a train whistle BEFORE we left the station on this 90 minute trip. I am going to blow it every 27 seconds during this excursion. Did I mention that this will be the only thing louder than your 18 month old screaming daughter?'

Results of survey of passengers over 5 feet tall:
-'Doesn't this fuckin' train have a drinks bar?'


BTW: I once caught the train from Mainz to Bielefeld. It ran along the Rhine, it was lovely. I had no children at that point.

Thanks, Walter, for the answer to margo's question about the cost of the Bergen trip.
Actually, margo, it was so long ago I can't remember.
I do remember that Bergen was a nice, pleasant place to rest for this very konked out travellor at the time. Also enjoyed doing the B&B thing at someone's home ... much cheaper & a good change for when you get tired of el cheapo hotels.
Lucky you! I'm envious!

I rode with Amtrak twice, once from Gainesville, Ga, to New Orleans, La. That was a very nice trip because the waiter in the restaurant-waggon was acting tourguide on the P.A. He told us all about the interesting sites that we passed along the way. I also got to accquainted with a collegekid in the cafe'car, and he had a couple of days till school started, so he had some time and showed me around N'awlens. Beautiful town. The trainride is named The Crescent going from New York to New Orleans.

The second trip took me from New Orleans to Miami, which is the finishing leg of a trainride that starts in Los Angeles and stops in Miami. It's called the Sunset Limited. Anyways, this leg of the trip is 1033 mls long and takes 24 hrs, which made me wanting to have a sleeping cabin. Cost me a good deal of money, and actually was all inclusive, breakfast, lunch, and dinner! Alcoholic beverages cost extra, but sodas were "on the house"!

Didn't get to see much, because it was 11 PM when we started out of New Orleans, and I missed out on breakfast (New Orleans... ), but going down through Florida was nice, to say the least!

I've done some nice trainrides in Sweden too, but that was work! I was a waiter in the restaurantwaggon back then, but we still had some fantastic panoramas on the way to Stockholm! And some day I'll take a south-to-north ride through Sweden, it's supposed to be awesome.

Oh, yeah, just rememberd going first class from Stuttgart to Duesseldorf, some really nice sights of the wineregions and such along the The Rhine.

bigdice

I'm invading Sweden this summer. I'm giving everyone advance warning so they can all get to the System shops and have a decent supply of DECENT booze!

Can you suggest a train trip or two worth doing? Say - mostly day time, and somewhere respectable to stop at the end. I will be starting from either Stockholm or Vasteras.

From Stockholm going north, take the coastal trip, should be very nice. Going east, take a boat :-) , jes kidding.

Other than that, go west till Hallsberg, then go north, also some nice sights on that trip.

Or go the whole trip to the west, to Gothenburg, my hometown! Beautiful city, nice people, all you need to make the trip be nice!

I'm trying to get a buddy of mine to join a2k, but he's somewhat reluctant at the moment... If he joins you guys could do a swedish meet with relay, and any other swedish members... oohh! Hebba is in Copenhagen, Denmark, ask him to join in!

bd

I've taken the boat and gone east - ended up in Finland! Almost "ended" in Finland. Stepped on to a pedestrian crossing without looking the right way (or rather - didn't look left - where the cars were~!) You people - driving on the right! Also, apparently pedestrians don't have right of way on pedestrian crossings in Finland - unlike Australia.

I may head west - I'm thinking I may wander towards Norway - which I've only seen briefly. Your folks should make sure the air-raid shelter is stocked - so they can hide if I cause another riot. - Fairly humourless, and not very flexible - those employees in System shops! Visiting Aussies have trouble in such strict confines Almost enough to force you to become teetotal!

Bring on the smoked reindeer!

C'mon margo, you don't have to go teetotal coz of that? sheesh, touchy, ey?

Then, again, the Systemshops actually have a very good selection of smashes of all sorts! Expensive, but good!

Dunno about right of way in Finland, in Sweden I don't care, all pedestrians in Gothenburg are anarchists, I think!

Royal Gorge Route - Colorado

That's what I want to do one day, From L.A. to Chicago by train.

A lot of people I know want to take the Trans-Siberian Moscow to Bejing, but I dunno... First class, maybe!

JD

That looks good! Have you been on it? Can you tell us about it?

bigdice - Trans-siberian sounds exotic - but I suspect there's an awful lot of nothing to be seen in the middle !~