Some places are better arrived at by rail.
Which side of the Bernina carriage gets the lake. What a seat on the Jacobite costs and how far ahead it goes. Whether the Kuranda run is worth a whole day. Reviews of the train rides you can actually book.
A viaduct, a rack railway, a rainforest line and a cable up a cliff.
Four rides that carry more passengers than anything else on the site, what each one costs, and why people come back talking about them.
01The famous oneBernina Train and St. Moritz Day TripMilan up to the Bernina line and St Moritz. Snow on both sides in June, and the viaduct at Brusio spirals under its own track.
02Straight upMontserrat & Cogwheel Train, Gourmet Wine Tasting & Tapas/LunchA rack railway grinding up the Montserrat cliffs out of Barcelona, with the monastery and lunch at the top.
03Through the treesSelf-Guided Kuranda Trip with Train and SkyrailThe Kuranda line out of Cairns, cut into a gorge wall in the 1880s, with the cableway back over the canopy.
04Ten minutes upFunicular Ticket to Harder KulmThe Harder Kulm funicular above Interlaken. Steep, short, and the cheapest big view in the Bernese Oberland.
Six countries that built their scenery a railway.
Alpine racks and panoramic glass, Frecciarossa run-throughs, hill lines out of Delhi and Colombo, a rainforest gorge in Queensland, the market line north of Bangkok, and narrow gauge along the Mallorcan coast.
From Milan you can be on a glacier line or in Naples by lunch.
Italy runs two railways at once. One does 300km/h between the cities in a suit. The other crawls over Swiss viaducts and up the back of Vesuvius. Three kinds of day out of an Italian station, and what each one costs to board.
Lines built where a road would have been cheaper.
Engineers cut these routes through gorges, over spiral viaducts and along cliff ledges because there was no easier way. A hundred years on you can still buy a window seat on every one of them.
The train trips more travellers book than any other.
Every train trip we have reviewed →Ranked window seats, cliff railways and fast-train day trips, with what each one costs and how long it holds you.
1
Mt Fuji & Hakone Cruise, Drum Show Bullet Train 1 Day from Tokyo
See Mount Fuji, Lake Ashi, Hakone, a drum show, and return to Tokyo by Shinkansen on this full-day guided excursion.
From · $149
Read our review →
2
Montserrat & Cogwheel Train, Gourmet Wine Tasting & Tapas/Lunch
from $81
3
Lake Como Cruise, St. Moritz & Bernina Red Train
from $159
4
Tokyo Mt Fuji 5th St & Hakone Cruise Bus Tour w/Bullet Train
from $154
5
Day Trip to Grindelwald, Interlaken & Lauterbrunnen
from $132
6
Bernina Train and St. Moritz Day Trip
from $122
7
Christ the Redeemer Entry Ticket by Corcovado Train
from $45
8
From Málaga: Ronda+Setenil de las Bodegas with Little Train
from $34
What a day on the rails really sets you back.
Every trip on the site grouped by price. A seat on a hundred-year-old mountain line often costs less than the taxi to the station.
Funicular tickets, city tourist trains, museum entries and the short heritage runs.
The full-day standards: rack railways, rainforest lines, fast-train day trips with a guide.
Jungfraujoch, the long panoramic runs and the private carriage days that earn it.
Switzerland treats a timetable the way other countries treat a monument.
The Bernina climbs to 2,253 metres without a rack. The Jungfrau line finishes inside the mountain. Half the country is reachable on one pass, and the panoramic services want a seat reservation of their own.
Every Swiss rail trip →
Three journeys that exist because somebody refused to stop laying track.
Cable cars go up. Coaches go round. These three go somewhere no other kind of transport was ever going to reach.
The Bernina Line
It climbs from Tirano at 429 metres to Ospizio Bernina at 2,253 without a single rack rail, which is why the engineers had to spiral the track through the Brusio viaduct to gain height in a field. The line is a hundred and fifteen years old, still worked in winter, and the open-air carriages sell out before the glass ones do.
- 1Milan to St. Moritz: Scenic Bernina Train Tour with Guide★★★★★★★★★★ 4.4 · 1,840 reviews
- 2Bernina Train, Swiss Alps & St. Moritz Day Trip★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 1,120 reviews
- 3Bernina Train Guided Tour to St. Moritz★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 948 reviews
The Glenfinnan Viaduct
Twenty-one arches on a curve above Loch Shiel, built out of mass concrete in 1898 because there was no local stone worth quarrying. The steam service from Fort William crosses it twice a day in season, slowly, and the driver knows exactly why everyone has a window down.
- 1From Inverness: Jacobite Steam Train and Highlands Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.4 · 921 reviews
- 2Magical Highlands Tour with Jacobite Train★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 726 reviews
- 3Moors, Whitby & The Yorkshire Steam Railway Day Trip from York★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 366 reviews
The Kuranda Line
Cut into the side of the Barron Gorge by hand between 1882 and 1891, through fifteen tunnels and around curves tight enough to see your own last carriage. Cyclone rain built the waterfalls it runs past, and the cableway back over the canopy makes the return trip a different journey entirely.
- 1Self-Guided Kuranda Trip with Train and Skyrail★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 3,392 reviews
- 2Kuranda Scenic Railway Day Trip from Cairns★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 1,075 reviews
- 3Grand Kuranda including Skyrail and Kuranda Scenic Railway★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 598 reviews
Four rail seats that will not be there next week.
Most of this site can be arranged the night before. These four run on seat quotas, a season, or a single daily path on a single-track line, and none of them care what time your flight lands.
- 01From Inverness: Jacobite Steam Train and Highlands TourOne steam set, two runs a day, and only in season. Seats open months out and the west-facing side goes first.
- 02Lake Como Cruise, St. Moritz & Bernina Red TrainThe panoramic cars take a compulsory seat reservation on top of the ticket, and the summer open-air carriage has a fixed number of places.
- 03Day Trip to Jungfraujoch – Top of EuropeThe cogwheel up from Kleine Scheidegg runs to a fixed capacity, and the whole trip is cancelled outright when the summit is closed by weather.
- 04Machu Picchu 2-Day Inca Trail with Panoramic TrainOne single-track line serves Aguas Calientes. The daily path count is capped by law, so tickets are dated and effectively rationed.
Half the best track in the world closes for the winter.
Heritage steam runs to a season and a volunteer roster. Alpine rack lines shut when the snow arrives and the mountain stops selling tickets. Monsoon washes out hill routes for weeks. What stays open is everything the weather cannot reach: fast trains, city funiculars, the roundhouses and the market lines.
By kind of train
The fortnight almost everybody plans first, in the order the timetables allow.
France
GermanyThe newest train trip reviews.
The newest arrivals board →
Zermatt Village & Gornergrat Railway Tour | From Bern
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Zagreb: Group walking tour of Zagreb (funicular included)
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Zagreb: Plitvice With Secured Tickets, Boat And Train Ride
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With the steam train through Transylvania- 8 Day
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York Day Rail Tour from London including Hop-on Hop-off tour
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Winter Tour Viking Village, Nærøyfjord Cruise & Flåm Railway
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Walking City Tour with Funicular, Cable Car and Tasting
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Virginia City Day Tour From Lake Tahoe with Train Ride
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Valparaiso 4-Hour City Tour by Van and Funicular
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USHUAIA | Tierra del Fuego National Park & Optional Train
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Meteora: 2-Days Train Tour from Thessaloniki – Local Agency
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Exclusive Panoramic Train Journey though the Heart of Swiss
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