10 great rail journeys to take in the USA

There’s no getting around the sheer size and scale of the USA – it’s an absolute, supersized whopper – and the best way to see it all is via train.

If you’re planning a trip around the USA, you already know that you have a lot of ground to cover: more than 3.8 million sq miles of epic mountain ranges, massive deserts, dense forests and seemingly endless prairies sprinkled with cities both world-renowned and lesser known. Sure, road-tripping is an iconic way to get around the USA, but if you’d rather leave the driving to someone else so you can soak up the scenery, the train is the way to go.

While the USA hasn’t had quite the renaissance of train travel that Europe has seen, the country is certainly getting back on track, posting record ridership numbers in 2024. Improvements and all-new trains are coming soon, but for now, train travel in the USA means slow travel. The rails are rarely the fastest way to get anywhere, but that’s not why you’re here. Disconnect from your devices (many routes don’t have wi-fi) and instead connect with your fellow passengers in the observation car, or simply sit back, relax and enjoy the ride.

Advertisement

1. California Zephyr

Route: Chicago to Emeryville (near San Francisco)
Distance: 2438 miles
Duration: 52 hours

No train journey in the USA – or perhaps the world – is as epic as the California Zephyr. It’s the furthest you can go within the US by train, and it packages up the best of the country in a little more than two days on its route between Chicago and California. Heading west, the Midwest prairies roll out a green carpet for miles in every direction until the Rocky Mountains start to peek over the horizon. The train snakes through impossibly narrow gorges along the Colorado River before rumbling through the lunar-like salt flats of Utah and Nevada and then winding up mountains once again – this time the Sierra Nevada. Grab a seat in the observation car early to get front-row views through the floor-to-ceiling windows. Between Reno and Sacramento, volunteer docents from the California State Railroad Museum often narrate the journey.

While the journey is worth seeing through from end to end, plenty of tempting stops might lure you away temporarily. Salt Lake City, Utah, is a particularly good option for keeping the train theme going. In November 2024, the Asher Adams hotel opened in SLC’s gorgeous former Union Station, built in Second Empire style in 1909, and its rooms hark back to the golden age of train travel. The hotel’s whiskey bar is named No 119 after one of the two trains that met when the country was joined by the first transcontinental railroad. That famous event took place just a 1½-hour drive north of Salt Lake City at the Golden Spike National Historical Park, where you can see a replica No 119 in action as it steams toward its west-coast counterpart Jupiter in a daily reenactment.

2. The Coast Starlight

Route: Seattle to Los Angeles
Distance: 1377 miles
Duration: 35 hours

Tracing most of the USA’s western shoreline, the Coast Starlight is just as dreamy as its name promises, and it shows off just how naturally diverse the “best coast” can be. South of Santa Barbara, the route curves atop high cliffs with Pacific Ocean waves often dotted with brave surfers crashing below. An hour or so before sunset is a particularly good time to nab a seat in the observation car as the Golden State enters into golden hour. On the Coast Starlight’s northern stretches, the tracks head further inland, swapping the water for a sea of trees, including California’s famous towering redwoods, and the often snow-capped mountains of the Cascade Range.

3. Empire Builder

Route: Chicago to Seattle or Portland
Distance: 2764 miles
Duration: 46 hours

Amtrak’s Empire Builder connects three excellent epicenters of culture via a natural rise and fall of American landscapes. Wisconsin woodlands and Great Plains prairies that are as long and low as the horizon eventually give way to snow-capped Rocky Mountain peaks. Keep your eyes peeled from the observation car to try to spot bears, moose and bald eagles. Nature enthusiasts can also get off the train and step right into Glacier National Park from the station at East Glacier (open from April to October), which is close to the historic Glacier Park Lodge, built by the Great Northern Railway in 1913. Beyond the log-cabin-style building, glacial blue alpine lakes and wildflower-filled meadows await.

Advertisement

On the Portland branch of the Empire Builder, passengers travel along the Columbia River Gorge, a designated National Scenic Area of thick forest and deep water-carved cliffs.

4. Sunset Limited

Route: Los Angeles to New Orleans
Distance: 1995 miles
Duration: 48 hours

Sunset Limited, Amtrak’s southernmost line, might not have the wow factor of the other nearly cross-country journeys like the California Zephyr, but it’s a quiet classic. On its eastern end, the route rolls along Louisiana’s alligator-filled bayous and 153ft above the Mississippi River on the Huey P Long Bridge outside of New Orleans. In Texas, the cars slow down high above water once again, this time on the Pecos River High Bridge, once the tallest in the country. (If you want to see it, make sure you’re traveling westbound; headed east, you’re in the dark.) Stark Southwestern desertscapes of cacti and tumbleweeds fill the observation car windows through New Mexico and Arizona before you reach California’s mountains and beaches.

Unlike most of Amtrak’s other long-distance lines, Sunset Limited trains depart only three times a week, but in another way, the Sunset Limited is about to get a little less limited. Prior to Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the eastern terminus of this line was Miami. This year, in 2025, two decades after that huge disaster, the Sunset Limited will be partially reopened to Mobile, Alabama.

5. Pacific Surfliner

Route: San Luis Obispo to San Diego
Distance: 351 miles
Duration: 9 hours

The southbound Coast Starlight ends in Los Angeles, but that doesn’t mean your oceanside journey has to. The route of the Pacific Surfliner mostly overlaps with the Coast Starlight, giving West Coast travelers more daily departure options, but only the Surfliner carries on all the way to San Diego. If you don’t have the days to dedicate to the Coast Starlight, the Pacific Surfliner is the perfect option for a shorter train trip, taking in all the highlights of southern California by train. If you’re traveling the whole west coast without a car, you can also cross the border into Tijuana, Mexico, on foot.

6. Amtrak Cascades

Route: Eugene to Vancouver, Canada
Distance: 467 miles
Duration: 10 hours

Similar to the Pacific Surfliner, Amtrak Cascades has some of the same stops as the Coast Starlight, but this train heads north beyond the US–Canada border and into British Columbia. The Amtrak Cascades is the best way to soak up the green and gray landscapes of the Pacific Northwest, as the train winds through a fairy-tale scene of rushing rivers and waterfalls and forests full of moss-covered trees. The tracks get so close to the mirror-like water of Puget Sound that it feels like you could reach out the train window and dip your hand in.

If you can’t get enough of the ride, Rocky Mountaineer trains set off from Vancouver on three super scenic routes.

7. Adirondack

Route: New York City to Montréal, Canada
Distance: 381 miles
Duration: 10 hours

Budding and dedicated autumn leaf peepers shouldn’t miss Amtrak’s Adirondack route as the trees start to change color, though it’s a gorgeous journey no matter when you ride. The train cars sweep through verdant vineyards in Hudson Valley and past Lake Champlain and Lake George, as well as the train’s namesake mountain range between two major cultural hubs. If you’re headed on the northbound route from New York City, the trip is almost all during daylight hours – from about 8:30am to 8:30pm – providing ample opportunities to gaze out the window for as long as you’d like.

8. Rocky Mountaineer: Rockies to the Red Rocks

Route: Denver to Moab
Distance: 350 miles
Duration: 2 days

Amtrak is the only national passenger train service in the United States, but private companies run seriously scenic trains on a few lines across the country. One of the best is the luxe Rocky Mountaineer, an unforgettable ride through Colorado’s winding Glenwood Canyon and Utah’s Martian deserts, which are best viewed through its glass-domed train cars. The landscapes only get more enticing and otherworldly after leaving the train in Moab and venturing to the two nearby national parks: Arches and Canyonlands.

Though it covers just a short distance over a long stretch of time, the Rocky Mountaineer isn’t a sleeper train – it stops for the night in Glenwood Springs, Colorado (a hotel is included in the ticket price), where you can soak the day away in the hot springs.

9. Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad

Route: Durango to Silverton, Colorado
Distance: 45 miles
Duration: 9 hours round trip

Opened in 1881, the Durango & Silverton Railroad once hauled silver and gold out of the San Juan Mountains but now has snap-happy travelers filling up its carriages. One of the best things to do in Colorado, this heritage line still runs old-school steam trains, and this incredible journey through the mountains lurches along rocky cliffs that tower high above the fast-flowing Animas River. This train ride is often done as a day trip – there’s a two-hour stop in Silverton for you to grab lunch and wander the mountain town 9318ft above sea level – but it’s also possible to stay overnight, perhaps at the Grand Imperial Hotel, which opened in 1884.

10. Grand Canyon Railway

Route: Williams to Grand Canyon Village, Arizona
Distance: 64 miles
Duration: 8¼ hours round trip

Arrive in one of the country’s most popular national parks like a traveler of yore aboard the historic Grand Canyon Railway, which has been bringing visitors to the Grand Canyon for longer than it’s been a national park. This family-friendly journey begins in the town of Williams, where you might witness a Wild West gang attempting to pull off a train robbery. At the end of the line, you arrive within walking distance of the canyon edge. The train stops in Grand Canyon Village for three hours before returning to Williams.

Railfans should time their visit for Saturdays, when steam locomotives pull the trains, or book tickets to ride in the refurbished 1923 Pullman cars with open windows.