What are your favorite and least favorite passenger rail experiences?

My favourite is riding the Durango and Silverton through the Annimas Valley, closely followed by a trip up Pikes Peak on the Cog Railway.

My worse (two of them) - One - Commuting on the London Underground in Rush Hour during a heatwave - stacked in like sardines, temperature over 100f, and of coursewith the guy next to me having forgotten to bathe after a lot of garlic the night before! Two travelling (for work thankfully so I was being paid) from Edinburgh Scotland to Reading England on Virgin Trains as it was then. Three trains failing in sucession at different places on the journey making what could have been a 7 hour journey nearly 12. Ugh

CarterB wrote: ↑Sat May 02, 2020 6:41 pm Favorite: Taking the Empire Builder early 70s Chi to Sea. Dome lounge sleeper single bedroom. Great scenery, food and accomodations.
Least: Any current Amtrak Regional.

agree, have done the same

Favorite: Taking the Auto-Train with my girlfriend on the way down to Florida. Got to show her what First Class was like and she loved the room, especially having a private bathroom with shower for the overnight trip. She was my fiancee on the way back

Least: It's a tossup. There was the time we were in the Berlin U-Bahn in 100+F weather, not moving, no fans working and feeling like I was about to die... But the fact that the train was clean and eventually got moving means it wasn't as bad as the days when I was getting used to my then-new commute on the MBTA Lowell Line, circa 1987, riding in these dilapidated Budd cars. Torrid sun with no breeze and air conditioning that probably hadn't worked since the Kennedy Administration. The dirt, the shaking, the noise... It all made for some memorably bad trips. They were just starting to replace the Budds with new Bombardier and MBB coaches. I knew of people who would wait 30 minutes for the next train rather than be in a broken Budd car.

My all time favourite is the Indian Pacific's stop in Rawlinna, right in the middle of the Australian outback. The train stops, there are bon-fires, drinks, canapés and no other towns for over 400 miles.

I've covered the trip a couple of times for https://trainreview.com - right before COVID I was fortunate to be on the train's 50th anniversary train. If you are interested you can check out my article here: https://trainreview.com/article/all-abo ... sary-train

FAVOURITE: The sunset canapes that are served on Australia's Indian Pacific in Rawlinna - passengers get off the train to open fires, a vast desert sky and live music 600 miles from anywhere.

LEAST FAVOURITE: Crossing borders in the middle of the night...

Favorites is riding on any train in my own compartment.
Worse is having to stand while riding on any train.