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Prague to Istanbul, in three legs (stopping in Budapest and Bucharest). Great way to see new places!
Went from London to Innsbruck, got off at St. Anton, then on to Innsbruck. On the way back stopped off at Interlaken to go up to Grindelwald just to see the Eiger, then stopped off at Zurich just to see the tram network, from where we caught the wrong train and got thrown off somewhere in Belgium and had to backtack to Strazbourg and wait four hours in the middle of the night for the right train to Dover. Happy days, I heartily recommend it to anyone.
Done Interrailing all over Europe and also a pretty epic USA journey - NY > Washington > New Orleans > Memphis > Chicago > Niagara > NY in two weeks. That was fun 🙂
Aswan to Cairo, 1st class as that's all tourists are allowed to buy
The diarrhoea on the plane home was EPIC !!!
I've spent approximately 100 days and nights on Indian trains. Longest was 72hrs in 2nd class(mainly use this as its more entertaining). Did 24 in 3rd once which was hell for the night but great in the day. Rajdhani express is all 1st and fast between Delhi/Kolkata very good. I love nothing more than sitting in the open door clacking through the Indian countryside, never bores me.
Don't think anyone has mentioned Oslo - Bergen, the main line goes from sea level to around 1200m with the option from Myrdal to Flam going back from 1200m to 0m in about 45mins. Definately the best views I have ever had from a train ride and I think holds some record for steepest conventional line or something.
Aswan to Cairo, 1st class as that's all tourists are allowed to buyThe diarrhoea on the plane home was EPIC !!!
alexandria to siwa by bus is far far worse
Junkyard, yeah, we took a nightbus from cairo to luxor
No a/c. Crammed full of itinerant workers going home. Muslamic swan-based videos blaring all night and everybody shouting over that. All chewing nuts & gobbing/throwing the bits all round the place. Bog blocked and overflowing for the entire trip.
It was OK though - it was an "executive" bus so there must've been worse options I guess 😯
(also had a taxi trip across the desert by lake nasser. about 4hrs, blazing hot with some freshly bought fish on the back shelf. My wife nearly killed herself)
Done a couple.
Bangkok to Trang when the airports were closed, 2nd class. Not bad, bit sweaty, but quite an adventure.
London to Corsica - not quite up to what I expected, unfortunately. Didn't sleep much.
My sister's done Amtrak from Chicago to LA, IIRC, and thought it was great.
So yes, broadly, but depends on the route.
East Croydon to Eastbourne, 7 hrs of sitting on trains pretending I didn't work for a rail company after a landslip shut the main London to Brighton line and the coast way services got stuffed with a major signalling failure.
36hrs Jodhpur -> Margao in india, just don't eat the train catered food!
Also +1 for the whisky...
Glasgow-Oban or Glasgow-Ft William, I don't care if 5 hours isn't epic, but the potential to use those trains for hillwalking and biking epics is huge. That train is basically the party/holiday/mountain train.
I'm sitting in Vancouver at the moment waiting to fly home in a week's time and all I'm thinking about is getting on that train, I'm even fantasising about the cheeky halftime cigarette at the Crianlarich station while looking at up at Cruach Ardrain...
Done a few 24 hour trips and some shorter ones on Soviet trains - a bit boring but 12 hours on the train was usually preferably to awful plane rides.
Not the sort of trip you would do at the drop of a hat - a lot of paperwork required in Russia for even just staying in a hotel.
It's a lot easier now - you can book hotels all online and do the visa invite online too.
we went on 'sleeper' from bucharest to chisinau (moldova) this summer, old soviet rolling stock-- at the border at 4 am-- two sets of customs and immigration--then off to a shunting yard where the whole train is split up, your carriage is jacked up about ten feet , changing the boogies for different gauge-- then through moldovan countryside-- seemed like going back centuries-- all water from wells, every one on bicycles, the odd van-- now want to go cycle touring there-- train was ace-- hot cooked food,cold beer, proper coffee, all for buttons..
About 16 years ago
Shenzen to Beijing - 36hrs
Beijing to Xian - 24hrs
Xian to Guilin - forgotten
Can't remember scenery being inspiring (or visible), but meeting the people was superb
remembereed it now it was chernomorskoye to poltava - its actually to the east of kiev but you had to go into kiev and change trains....
train from chernomoskoye was sooooooo slow - and stopped randomly.
consisted of a bunch of hard wood wooden bench seats and a fan heater in each carridge and a woman with a tray of disgusting looking cling film wrapped "open sandwiches"
Transylvania to the Black Sea was quite pleasant. It trundled through the rather nice countryside at apparently walking pace. It had a proper buffet car serving the best (strongest) coffee I've ever had.
I remember thinking at the time that it put our shoddy overpriced railways to shame. As long as you weren't in too much of a hurry. Which we weren't.
The playground of Russian Gangsters, Oil Rich Saudi's and Eastern European hookers it delivered us into was an eye opener 😯
About 20 years ago on a trip around Peru we did:
Puno - Cusco (took about 4 hrs longer than scheduled, but the scenery was epic)
Cuzco - Agua Caliente (Machu Pichu) - again epic views, and the switchbacks to gain height out of Cuzco were interesting.
Also did
Cairo - Aswan on an overnight sleeper. Cabin for two - sounds like luxury but was actually a bit seedy.
I quite fancy doing St Petersberg to Beijing by train but would want a month or more to do it so I could get off and explore when I wanted (within reason). Mind you, I almost self-harmed on a 4-hour train ride from Brussels recently so maybe that's not a good idea.
Pretty much anywhere in the UK on the train on a Sunday is going to be an epic.
Personally, felling asleep on the last train to Croydon from Victoria and ending up in Brighton (during freshers week) ticked the box.
Also sleeper to Fort William (actually, it broke down about 5 miles short, so arrived in a coach.)
was also on one that did that
night train London-Glasgow, drunks kept pulling the emergency chain, so train was stuck before Watford for an hour or two, till the cops arrived to escort them off the train. Parents with kids going on and on and on about how brilliant it is to see the sun rise as the train crosses from England in to Scotland.
Then the train broke down at Carlisle (I think it stops for a while anyway, but this was a much longer while).
By now it was bright day light. So the aforementioned parents were whingeing and whining, because they'd been conned and missed a seriously crucial part of their away break.
Then we got towed in to Glasgow c/o a thunderbird. Obviously even in the days before GSM, news travels quickly, so Glasgow Central was swarming with anoraks with flasks of weak lemon drink, presumably due to the rare configuration of the arriving train.
Well over 12 hours for a journey that tbf I could have done during the day in less than half.
Done a few
Hayes (Kent) to Beijing, with stops
Mumbai to Trivandrum, again with stops
Bristol to Finale Ligure (with bikes to do the 24hr race)
Interrailing
Bristol to Barcelona
around Morocco
Sydney to Melbourne
Too many eurostar trips to rember
I love trains.
have been to edinburgh from swindon return quite a few times when i was young (went with my grandfather to visit his/my relations in edinburgh (he was born in the dean village).sadly those days are long gone 🙁
Did the Eurostar to Paris and then the TGV to Avignon which was fun sitting on the upper floor watching the country go past at 180mph. Not much to see though.
I was looking at the train from Oslo to Bergen, which is about 7hrs plus and goes through the most stunning landscape......sounds fab!
got sacked in cristobal(atlantic side of panama canal)- so was 'transferred ' to panama city via that railway that hugs the canal-- supposedly 'great train trip '-- no it wasn't, wooden bench in stifling heat, nowt to drink and endless 'jungle'--oh the odd glimpse of canal.
I did Manchester to Warsaw a few weeks ago
Manchester - Euston
St Pancras - Brussels - Cologne - Warsaw
It was a great way to travel. The time seemed to go quite fast, the trains were smooth (apart from the Cologne Warsaw sleeper)
Managed about 4 or 5 hours kip in a couchette
South of France by train is lovely: Eurostar to Paris, TGV to Nice, then we took the boat to Corsica.
Inverness to Euston on the sleeper - table service in the lounge car!
Couple of overnighters in Thailand.
My wife has done Moscow - Vladivostock. seven days, very slow and mostly boring, apparently.
Don't think anyone has mentioned Oslo - Bergen
I was about to. Did it three times. You'll see a dirt road coming and going as you cross the wilderness, and you'll really want to ride it 🙂
Regularly on the Caledonian Sleeper from work in Nottingham to home in Elgin - 12-14 hours each way. Most scenic parts are through Cumbria/Borders and through the Cairngorms (the stop on the way up at Aviemore always makes me want to get off and go climb/walk/run/bike...).
Calais to Bourg St Maurice on the ski train, the only scenery we saw was the inside of the party coach...
Venice to Paris Bercy, overnight.
Didn't see much really. Nice double sleeper. Good coffee wake up in the morning. Ate before departure so didn't use the restaurant car but had plenty of drinks. Very first world civilized.
My wife has done Moscow - Vladivostock. seven days, very slow and mostly boring, apparently.
she must have been sore !!
Trans Siberian Railway from Moscow to Perm 5 years ago. Was amazing, but very, very cold! 🙂
I like travelling by train.
Very relaxing.
Ive done some fairly big trips by trains - a couple in Vietnam & a couple in Africa, all overnight. Great fun. I saw lots of the countryside, you can get up & wander around, you get to meet all sorts! The African trains had a bar...that got messy..
Ive done the Sea to Sky in BC as well, very mellow..
Perth to London - ok until the border, then pretty dull there not being much int he way of scenery south of York
Rome to Naples - not really epic, but gps clocked nearly 200mph which is my personal best land speed time.
Some amazing journeys above; as long as you're prepared to rough it the train is a great way to see developing countries. My most 'epic' journey was Munich to Athens with a stopover in Zagreb. I seem to remember a lot of the conversation travelling through Yugoslavia (it was a while ago) consisted of listing Liverpool and Man.U football players with National Service lads. It was snowing in Athens when the guard woke me up as he checked the carriages with the train in the sidings 😕
the guard woke me up as he checked the carriages with the train in the sidings
ex flatmate did that.
Was sposed to be last tube to earls court, change to wimbledon line. ended up in Richmond sidings. Should have just got a cab in the first place.
I did Huelva - Seville - Madrid - Lyon - Grenoble over a long weekend using only local trains and surviving on one chorizo and some stale bread. Occasionally I went backwards and I did spend a lot of time waiting on station platforms for trains I wasn't sure were even running.
Ah, student travel!
I arrived late on a Monday night exhausted at Grenoble Uni halls and the receptionist told me flatly that there were no rooms available. So I fished out a letter from my college and he looked at it and said "Oh, you, yes we've got a room for you!" then gave me the one room in the halls that nobody wanted because it has the gas heating regulator in a tin box outside the window, which hissed loudly all day and night. Also there was a constant rain of reject food, rubbish and used condoms falling loudly on the tin roof from the floors above. When I opened the blind in the morning and saw a snowy Alp I don't mind admitting that I was so overwhelmed that I bubbled a bit.
I love train travel. By far the most civilised way to get around. Comfortable to sit. You can get up and wander round. Carry your own food and booze. Travel city centre to city centre with a minimum of queueing.
Nairobi - Mombassa sleeper watching wildlife through the parks.
Mexico City - Guadalahara - Cuidad Juarez (then enter the US on foot..). Third class mexican trains give the indian railways a run for their money
Southern Turkey to Istanbul sleeper
Galle - Kandy in SriLanka
Bangkok - Chiang Mai
Hanoi - Saigon
Most of my travel in India - Gorakhpur-Varanassi-Delhi-around Rajasthan
Luxor - Cairo sleeper
European stuff is less interesting and usually expensive compared to flying but much more civilised. Anything involving TGV/ICE/Eurostar/Swiss Railways is a breeze.
London to Alps Ski train sleeper was great when it ran. 2 extra days on the slopes vs flying.
South of France (Carcassonne) is easy
Switzerland I've done a load of times.
London - Fort William sleeper was a great way to start riding the Great Glen
I've got this idea about flying out to Turkey and coming back by train. Needs a good few weeks though.
The [url= http://www.seat61.com ]Man in Seat 61[/url] is the font of all knowledge
Perth to Sydney.
3 days of playing Canasta and looking at ****ing kangaroos on the Nullaboor Plain. You weren't allowed to drink booze not bought from the train, so we had a couple of bottles, jumped off at one of the stations and bought a slab of the same make and just kept recirculating the bottle. Must have looked like real cheapskates to make a single beer last 72 hours...
36hrs Jodhpur -> Margao in india
That's not the same as Madgaon, is it?
India is probably one of the best examples of epic rail journeys. Arriving into Agra at 6am while the locals were performing their morning ablutions by the tracks was interesting - and stinky
I was the only one not in a couple. The couple in question were very, erm, close. The WHOLE journey.
@CFH - are you claiming this as a (sub-optimal) threesome ?
The trains in Vietnam are a great way to see the county South to North all the way up to Sapa (note you can do a "van uplift" there, then roll 10k down the road to the rice fields on a rented "mountain bike" - I'd post a photo but I look even more ridiculous than usual)
Not personally, but one of the offshore guys in my team started his holidays yesterday and was leaving on a 2-day train trip (across India) to get to his parents. I didn't ask if he'd be hanging off the outside or had a seat though.
Bit of a resurrection, but I'd recommend some of the American journeys - the scenery can be pretty epic, particularly on some of the mountain passes. The Empire Builder or the California Zephyr, Chicago to Seattle and Oakland respectively would be a very pleasant way to spend 3 days!
Makes you realise how good British railways really are too.
Boulogne to Innsbruck took seventeen hours, some nice scenery though
London Liverpool Street to Beijing in '95 for me - 10 nights. Boat across the Channel to Hook of Holland, train to Moscow, change on to Trans Siberian. Arrive in Beijing a week later. Fantastic adventure seeing Europe slowly turn into Asia.