I’m not a train guy so I’ve only been on a few but by far it was Flåmsbana. I was just exploring around in Norway on my day off and happened to hop on this train on a whim. It is apparently a world renowned line along a fjord and up a mountain passing beautiful scenery and waterfalls. I heard it’s one of the steepest railways in the world. Definitely a highlight of my time in Norway.

So, I was such a train kid. When my aunt picked me up from school, we took trams to get to her home but had to switch at the main station, so we had to just sit there and watch the trains come in and leave.

Back then, the first high speed trains were put into service and I was hooked. Like, we had to spend so much more time at the station on the vague hope one of them would maybe come in. I learned to read the huge schedule tables to be able to tell which platform to go to to see them or leave if we had to wait too long.

One christmas, I opened an envelope… In there was a train ticket. One of those fancy new high speed trains.

The whole ride was magic. They had headphone plugs in the armrests, they had screens that showed the current speed. I had a little table I could draw on. It was all so terrific. Seeing the landscape pass by, the new seats, the air suspension. I loved it.

If you ride the Coast Starlight northbound from California to Oregon, you travel through the Cascades between Dunsmuir, CA and Chemult, OR from 4:30 to 9:30 in the morning. You can wake up and watch the sun rise over the snow-capped mountains.

Southbound on the same route will put you between Eugene (5:00 PM) and Chemult (8:30 PM) in the evening. Depending on the time of year you may or may not get to see sunset in the mountains at that point.

While I haven’t been on anything like the orient express, going on a night train from Beijing to Vietnam, just me and a friend to a compartment, was good fun and memorable. We saw parts of Guangxi I believe, in which the terrain is flat except for random ‘needle mountains’. Incredible views.

Eugene, OR to Portland felt like total luxury

Emotionally: The regional express train departing on time and arriving in my home town without problems, after riding bus for almost 16 hours.

Objectively: The intercity express train that cut my trip from six hours with four changes of trains to two and and a half hours with one change of train.

Aesthetically: The historic steam train ride through a scenic forest.

Probably one of the Shinkansen bullet trains in Japan. Clean, smooth, and fast.

I don’t know where it was. I was young. There was a food car! It was neat! The people were amused at how delighted we were at kids.

I got a train (no, not the same one) from Newcastle to Beijing.

That was pretty cool

Paris to Vienna to Athens, in 1987, through Yugoslavia.

In Alaska, the train trip from Anchorage to Talkeetna is pretty darn beautiful.

So far has to be the THSR across Taiwan. Smoothest acceleration to 300km/h I’ve ever experienced, everything quite well organized (exception being the convoluted electronic ticket sales process) and the business car was nice. The beat part is the amazing sights though.

Also did the run the other way around without being able to reserve a seat and stood the whole way across the country, that time was leas fun but only because I couldn’t enjoy the sights. A bit ridiculous you can easily stand at those speeds but it’s definitely also a commuter line thanks to that.