From the steam trains of the early 19th century that helped spur America’s westward expansion by making cross-country travel safer and more comfortable, to today’s super-fast intercity lines, like Japan’s Shinkansen and France’s TGV, moving great numbers of people quickly and effectively on steel tracks has always been mostly a case of science and commodity.
B...
Tour Host Review
Offering the widest range of train trips of any company in the CulturalTravels.com database, this company was an overwhelmingly easy Pick of the Month to make.
Having chartered more than 825 trains and private rail cars on 123 rail lines in 32 countries, Trains Unlimited, Tours has created excellent working relationship with many railroads worldwide. Most every one of its trips are custom-charted...
Host of the Month
My sister-in-law had never taken a cable car ride and was determined to do so despite having arrived in San Francisco at the height of the summer tourist season. I gently warned her about the huge line of tourists waiting at the cable car turnaround at Powell and Market streets, how the combination of street hustlers, cacophonous boom boxes, glacially slow passenger line and the urge to take a foo...
Festival Pick
Australia is so big that even its comparatively small rainforests seem to go on forever. Although they covered only 9% of the continent’s 3 million square miles when English colonization began, they seemed endless to Australia’s early settlers. That belief inspired a pattern of exploitation that led to the felling of 40% of the nation’s rainforests over the next 200 years. Forest...
World Heritage Site
Verde Valley Railroad It’s not the destination; it’s the journey
Written By Teresa A. Propeck Propeck Posted on Nature
Nestled in the heart of the Verde Valley, aptly named for the abundance of green-colored malachite ore encrusted in the surrounding mountains, the Verde Canyon has been considered by many as Arizona’s other grand canyon. This unique and protected ecosystem, unspoiled and rich in geological intrigue, beckons visitors to pique their senses with the adventure that lies ahead. Step aboard the Verde Canyon Railroad to begin the journey.
On departure, the train’s colorful narrator bids farewell to the mining town of Jerome, positioned majestically at 5,400 feet on Mingus Mountain. The rail line from Jerome,...
The Cultured Traveler has been kind of sweet on San Diego lately (Cabrillo Festival July 2003; Reuben H. Fleet Science Center, Oct. 2003), and why not? As winter approaches, San Diego, with its very mild year-round climate becomes is one of those places that Canadians and Americans from cold-weather climes dream of spending some time in.
Let us pause and give tribute to the passing of a noble thing. British Airways retired its last Concorde Supersonic Transport (SST) on Friday, October 24, ending the last romantic era of flight.It is to the lumbering jumbo jets and the sky buses for almost all of us now, even the wealthy.That isn’t to say that many of us could have afforded the $10,000 or...
If you ever find yourself in Bangkok and either have recently come into some money or are traveling on company expenses, may I suggest that there is no better way to get to Singapore than on the Eastern and Oriental Express. The Orient Express dates back to October 1883. By the 1920s the train was running from Paris to Istanbul via Venice, through the Simplon...
My sister-in-law had never taken a cable car ride and was determined to do so despite having arrived in San Francisco at the height of the summer tourist season. I gently warned her about the huge line of tourists waiting at the cable car turnaround at Powell and Market streets, how the combination of street hustlers, cacophonous boom boxes, glacially slow...
If you have something against a vacation where you see everything from a bus window, try seeing Switzerland from a train window! If you are good on foot and like to travel at your own pace, then train travel is the way to go.
Start in Zurich, Switzerland's financial hub. The Hotel Widder in the oldest part of Zurich or the Bauer au Lac on the lake...
Train travel has been a passion of mine since growing up as a boy in the UK. Our family only used the train on special occasions, so I was always excited when we did. Normally this was on a special holiday excursion in the summertime to a beach resort about a two-hour ride away.
Because of these nostalgic childhood memories I still feel a sense of anticipation for the journey ahead...
Offering the widest range of train trips of any company in the CulturalTravels.com database, this company was an overwhelmingly easy Pick of the Month to make.
Having chartered more than 825 trains and private rail cars on 123 rail lines in 32 countries, Trains Unlimited, Tours has created excellent working relationship with many railroads worldwide. Most every one of its...
“It is a good many years since I was in Switzerland last. In that remote time there was only one ladder railway in the country. That state of things is all changed. There isn’t a mountain in Switzerland now that hasn’t a ladder railroad or two up its back like suspenders. Indeed, some mountains are latticed with them.” Mark Twain (1835-1910)
If you are standing at a train station in France when the TGV hurtles by at 186 mph, you might experience an enormous intake of breath, a human whoosh to its electrical one, but even with your eyes wide open, you won’t see it.
And yet, if you are inside the world’s fastest train, you will find it quiet and elegant, and if you look out at the landscape, there is such clarity...
From the steam trains of the early 19th century that helped spur America’s westward expansion by making cross-country travel safer and more comfortable, to today’s super-fast intercity lines, like Japan’s Shinkansen and France’s TGV, moving great numbers of people quickly and effectively on steel tracks has always been mostly a case of science and commodity....
If you examine a map of Scotland, you will notice it has a “waistline” stretching between Glasgow and Edinburgh. Since the late 18th century, this narrow part of Central Scotland was the site of two main canals.
The first, the Forth & Clyde Canal, opened in 1790 enabling boats to navigate the 35 miles between the River Clyde in Glasgow and the Firth of Forth at...
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Verde Valley Railroad It’s not the destination; it’s the journey