Book - Amazing Train Journeys

60 Unforgettable trips and how to experience them

I love trains more than any other mode of transport. It’s more civilised than planes - my second favourite - as I can walk on with a coffee and don’t have to arrive two hours before in order for someone to check how heavy my luggage is. Unless you’re in Shanghai where luggage goes through a security check every time and yet there never seem to be any queues. 

I am talking about travel adventures rather than waiting for the delayed 8.56 from Birmingham New Street to Sutton Coldfield - although that can be an adventure in a different way and still preferable to going via any road. 

So this book is one of the best Christmas presents I could have been given. There are some I won’t do, sometimes due to long tunnels (although I’ve fine with the Eurostar underneath the Channel) but more often because the train goes across an old precarious-looking bridge.

Others I have done (pictured), like the magical trip that forms the last leg of the Coast to Coast journey in Canada, from Montreal to Halifax. One day I’d like to do the whole thing, from Vancouver to Halifax. Not necessarily in one trip though. 

Trains journeys I’ve experienced

• New York to Poughkeepsie 

• Hong Kong’s West Rail Line 

• The Northern Explorer - Auckland to Wellington in a day

• plus that bit of the Coast to Coast in Canada

I prefer the lux over the everyday passenger trains (I have them at home) but I’ll take that option if the view on route or destination makes it worthwhile.

More about the journeys on my wish list on my travel blog