| ||||
|
Canadian Trains United States Trains Asian Trains South American Trains South African Trains | ||||
|
| ||||
London to Tehran via Istanbul by Train In April 2010, in the company of an old friend from high school, I set out to travel from London to Tehran by train by way of Istanbul. We followed the directions laid out at Seat61.com for travel, first, from London to Istanbul and thence from Istanbul on to Tehran. This narrative and the pictures that follow provide both logistical specifics regarding our journey as well as a good taste for what we saw and experienced during this six day overland odyssey.
| ||||
|
| ||||
Quebec North Shore & Labrador Railway (Tshiuetin Rail Transportation) In August 1999, as part of a driving trip across northeastern Quebec and central Labrador, I made a special point of riding the Quebec North Shore and Labrador Railroad (QNSL or QNS&L) from Labrador City to Sept Īles and back. The ride was great, not least because of an ancient but thorougly serviceable Pullman Standard dome car at the rear of the train. The pictures on this page speak for themselves; the scenery and views are, in my opinion, the match of the Alaska railroad.
| ||||
VIA Rail Canada's Bras d'Or In July 2000, I rode VIA's restored, once a week, Sydney to Halifax train, the Bras d'Or, from Sydney to Halifax, Nova Scotia on my return from the French Atlantic islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon. The route of the Bras d'Or had much touristic promise, but VIA ultimately failed in its effort both to promote the service to tourists and to integrate this train with the remainder of Canada's rail passenger services. Predictably, VIA cancelled this service in the fall of 2004.
| ||||
Algoma Central Railway Early in May 2009, I flew into Sault Ste. Marie to ride the Algoma Central Railway to the end of the line in Hearst. While we were able to buy our tickets at the new downtown station, we had to go a couple of miles out of town to the Algoma rail yards to actually board our train which consisted of a single coach, an engine and a generator car. There were at most a half dozen other passengers who came and went during the first half of our journey. The pictures below show the route in early spring with the snow and ice still on the ground in many places.
| ||||
VIA Rail Canada's Lake Superior In July 2009 I drove up to Sudbury, Ontario to ride VIA Rail Canada's Lake Superior, the train from Sudbury to White River and back. This thrice weekly service uses Budd RDC's to travel 300 miles of the Canadian Pacific mainline through the Ontario wilderness. This train, like the Algoma Central's train from Sault Ste. Marie to Hearst, survives primarily because it serves the camps that many families have here in the provincial interior, camps that are far from the reach of any road. While the train shows up in VIA's regular passenger schedules, it connects with no other scheduled passenger service.
| ||||
VIA Rail Canada's Chaleur I flew into Gaspe in July 2011 to ride the Chaleur to Montreal. Unfortunately, a service delay required me to take a bus from Gaspe to New Carlisle. So, three months later, in October 2011, I drove to Campbellton, NB in order to drive over the bridge to Quebec's Gaspe peninsula to ride the Chaleur from Carleton to Gaspe and back on a Thursday. The Chaleur is one of the best kept secrets of VIA's surviving rail passenger system. It includes a dome and real diner meals year round (although unlike my trip in July, the diner in October was a portion of the lower level of the skyline dome). The pictures which follow come from these two trips.
| ||||
|
| ||||
Boston to Mechanicville via the Hoosac Tunnel  On April 13, 2013, the Hoosac Tunnel Express traveled from Boston North Station to Norfolk Southern's new intermodal container facility in Mechanicville, NY. This was the first passenger train to pass through the Hoosac Tunnel in roughly a quarter century. This extraordinary trip was made possible by the combined efforts of High Iron Travel (a subsidiary of Iowa Pacific Holdings) and Pan Am Railways (via Pan Am Southern's Patriot Corridor). This web page includes a 20 minute and 45 second (143.6 MB) video "Through the Hoosac Tunnel on 13 April 2013". The video was shot from the observation platform of High Iron Travel's Caritas car.
| ||||
Return of the Rutland Railroad Amtrak's Ethan Allen from New York's Pennsylvania Station almost made it to North Bennington, Arlington and Manchester Vermont over newly rebuilt track from Hoosick Junction, New York to North Bennington, Vermont at the beginning of the first decade of the 21st century. The photos on this page depict the status of the track reconstruction project as of December 28, 2001. For political and budgetary reasons, that service was never started. In April 2008, however, the interchange was reopened for freight service. As of the summer of 2009, the Vermont Department of Transportation still lists the restoration of rail passenger service through Hoosick Junction and North Bennington as part of the future for train service in the Green Mountain State.
| ||||
The New Old Colony Railroad On September 29, 1997, the first passenger train arrived in Kingston, Massachusetts in roughly 40 years. Having lived in neighboring Duxbury in the 1960's and 1970's, I couldn't help but recognize that the restoration of commuter rail service to Boston's South Shore was a major event. The pictures at this page document some of the scenes surrounding this first day of passenger rail service in almost half a century. | ||||
The Greenbush Line Returns After seven months of delay, on September 22, 2003 the Commonwealth and the MBTA finally renewed their commitment to restoring rail passenger service to the historic South Shore. This service, which formally commenced on October 30, 2007, is now easing the commute to Boston for residents of these communities and increasing property values (while making the roads less congested for those who choose not to commute by rail). The photographs contained in this section depict that state of the property on September 25, 2003, October 17, 2004, November 14, 2005 and June 13, 2006. Some amazing pictures I took on October 30, 2007, the first day of service, were lost when the Sandisk memory card on my digital camera failed on the return trip.
| ||||
The Coast Starlight to Los Angeles via the Altamont Pass and the Tehachapi Loop For several weeks during the late winter and spring of 2011, Amtrak rerouted the southbound Coast Starlight in order to facilitate ongoing track work by the Union Pacific railroad between San Jose and San Luis Obispo. I flew out to SFO to ride Amtrak's Coast Starlight on April 12, 2011. We traveled from Emeryville south to Oakland and then eastward via the Western Pacific through the Altamont Pass to Lathrop (south of Stockton, east of Tracy) where the train was wyed to head south along the original Union Pacific to Bakersfield (not the more easterly route used by Amtrak's San Joaquin trains). From there we continued onto Los Angeles via the magnficent Tehachapi loop. If there was ever a railway line in America that deserved a daily first class passenger train, this is that route. Indeed, if Amtrak were to run a train straight south from Sacramento (rather than going first to Oakland and then east to Lathrop), the running time between Sacramento and Los Angeles would be at least two to three hours faster than the current travel time for the Coast Starlight's more westerly alignment which travels along the Southern Pacific tracks along the coast.
| ||||
The Western Pacific's Feather River Canyon Route On August 19, 2011, I traveled from Emeryville to Portola on an amazing excursion trip arranged by the fantastic folks at Trains and Travel International out of Reno. From Sacramento to Portola our train traveled over the Western Pacific Railroad and, from Orono eastward, we followed the famed Feather River Canyon. I was traveling in the Plaza Santa Fe, a former first class Super Chief dome car that has been lovingly restored and maintained. This was, without a doubt, the nicest rail car I have ever traveled in.
| ||||
The Ringling Brothers Barnum & Bailey "Blue" Circus Train  On October 3, 2011, I followed the RBBB Blue train for a portion of its several hour long journey from Nashua, New Hampshire to Worcester, Mass. over Pan American railways (former Boston & Maine track that was, for many, many years, part of the route of The State of Maine). The pictures on this page follow the train from the wye at North Chelmsford (just south of the New Hamphsire border) to Clinton, Mass. where a CSX freight spur passes overhead next to the long abandoned staion.
| ||||
|
| ||||
The Hill Country Trains of Sri Lanka In February 1998 I journeyed by rail from Colombo, at sea level, to Kandy and from there on to the hill station of Nuwara Eliya (pronounced new-REAL-ee-a). This page captures some of the magnificent images from this journey, including many pictures of the fertile tea estates which carpet the rugged and beautiful countryside. | ||||
The Kalka to Shimla Toy Train In January 2006 we travelled on the narrow gauge railway between Kalka (which sits on the border of the Punjab and Himachal Pradesh) and the hill station of Shimla on the Indian Railway's scheduled passenger service, the Himalayan Queen. The photographs which follow show the scenery from the almost five hour train ride as we ascended into the hills surrounding Shimla. | ||||
Korea Rail from Seoul to Busan
In April 2011, I accompanied my wife on a business trip to Seoul, South Korea. Given that I had some time on my hands, I decided to take a day and travel on the KTX Express from Seoul to Busan and back. Most of the pictures below come from the areas around the two stations or en route. The service between Seoul and Busan operates at least two or three times per hour in each direction. Both trains I took were almost completely full.
| ||||
|
| ||||
PeruRail's Andean Explorer Immediately following the Christmas holiday in 2012, my wife and I traveled on PeruRail's justifiably famous Andean Explorer from the city of Puno (on the shores of Lake Titicaca, which straddles the border between Peru and Bolivia and which also happens to be the world's highest navigable body of water) through the frontier town of Juliacca and then up to and through the La Raya pass (reaching an altitude of 4,313 meters or 14,150 feet) before descending gradually into the touristic city of Cuzco (the starting point for yet another rail journey leading to Aguas Calientes, the jumping off point for the famed Inca city of Machu Picchu). To see some photographs from this extraordinary journey, please click on the picture at right to visit my PeruRail's Andean Explorer Page. | ||||
|
| ||||
South African Steam (George to Knysna) In July 1993 during a trip to southern Africa, I traveled from George to Knysna in the western Cape of South Africa on a working narrow gauge steam railway. To see some pictures from that trip, please click on the picture at right to visit my South African Steam (George to Knysna) Page. |
