A chill ran up my spine when this email from Amtrak was forwarded to me:   “We are contacting you today to inform you that starting January 6 through March...

OK, I will concede that you may be tired of reading about the Pacific Parlour Cars on Amtrak’s Coast Starlight. I suppose part of the reason I write about them...

This is one of my favorite rides. The Cardinal runs between New York and Chicago, but it takes a meandering southern route that makes it, without doubt, one of the...

 The next morning, back in the desert and not quite halfway through its journey, the Ghan reaches Alice Springs. It stops for several hours here, allowing passengers to tour the...

(The following is the first part of a story I wrote for the Dallas Morning News relating my experiences on Australia’s two trans-continental trains.) As early as the mid-1800s, Australian...

The California Zephyr is still Amtrak’s most scenic train ride … at least in my book. The Coast Starlight is probably my favorite Amtrak train, but much of that has...

People know that I’m into train travel and the subject invariably comes up when I’m in conversation with someone. For example,,my dentist/friend will be attending a conference in Chicago later...

I have a lot of empathy for the people who work in the Amtrak dining cars. Consider the dining car crew on the California Zephyr, for instance. They leave Chicago...

What’s my favorite Amtrak train ride? That’s the question I’m most often asked, and it’s very hard to answer. For instance, I can’t imagine a more spectacular ride than the...

That’s a tough one, all right. I had the chance to experience both trains a few days ago, one after the other, coming home from my recent trip to the...