National Geographic’s 100 Train Journeys of a Lifetime

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Train travel, a 200-year-old tradition, is experiencing a resurgence – becoming more popular than ever today. Sure, you can ride the rails to get from A to B, but many travelers are boarding trains for the sheer excitement of the journey, to travel on railways that ascend mountains, cross continents, and may have historical significance.

These types of adventures are what’s in store through the pages of National Geographic’s 100 Train Journeys of a Lifetime: The World’s Ultimate Rides by Everett Potter.

“Trains can offer countless beautiful vistas and give you a window into a culture,” Potter says. “On a train ride in the U.S., you’ll pass a thousand backyards, glimpsing the present and the distant past simultaneously, as riveting as a great American novel as you watch a moonrise over the Rockies, the dusty deserts of the Southwest, or prairie grass blowing in the constant wind of the Dakotas.”

Many of the train journeys featured in this beautifully illustrated guide pack adventure, excitement, and history into a single trip. There are journeys you can easily complete in a few hours, while others require several days of travel. But each will leave a lasting impression.

History-lovers will thrill in short-distance voyages on amazing vintage trains like the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad in Colorado, a 45-minute jaunt on one of the best-preserved vintage railways in the world.

On the East Coast, the Mount Washington Cog Railway, completed in 1869 using technology developed during the Civil War, climbs to the 6,288-foot summit of Mount Washington, the highest peak in the northeast. The three-hour round trip ride on the world’s first mountain cog railway offers plenty of history and panoramic views of New Hampshire’s White Mountains.

For those who really love the views, the United States offers some of the most scenic and dramatic long-distance trains in the world, taking you to see the Rocky Mountains from an observation car, gaze at Glacier National Park, or cross endless prairies.

Longer train trips, such as the California Zephyr from Chicago to San Francisco, utilize double-decker glass-domed observation cars. This two-night, three-day experience passes through canyons, farmland, and deserts, not to mention the Rocky and the Sierra Nevada ranges. At 2,438 miles, it is Amtrak’s longest daily route, following the same path as the 1869 transcontinental railroad.

The Empire Builder travels from Chicago to Portland and Seattle, a 2,210-mile passage. Packing in some of the most scenic stretches of America’s prairies and mountains, the route follows parts of the Lewis & Clark Trail.

Then there’s the Coast Starlight, which heads north from Los Angeles, offering dramatic views as it hugs the coast for part of its route to Seattle, with stops in San Francisco and Portland.

You can’t go wrong taking any one of the trips in “National Geographic’s 100 Train Journeys of a Lifetime: The World’s Ultimate Rides,” available wherever books are sold.