The Best Scenic Train Rides in the U.S.: 12 Amtrak Routes

Pacific Surfliner: San Diego to San Luis Obispo

⏱ about 8 hours 45 minutes end to end

• 🚆Los Angeles to San Diego trainsfrom $18
• 🚆San Diego to San Luis Obispo trainsfrom $61

The Surfliner is the scenic train our travelers actually ride. Los Angeles to San Diego is the most-booked train trip we sell on the West Coast, just under three hours, and south of San Juan Capistrano the track runs right along the sand, close enough to watch the surf. Sit on the ocean side, the right of the train heading south and the left heading north.

The full run to San Luis Obispo is the version for a long, slow look at the coast. North of Santa Barbara the train crosses ranch land and empty shoreline with no highway beside it, the rarest kind of view in Southern California, because you can’t drive to it.

Coast Starlight: Seattle to Los Angeles

⏱ about 35 hours

• 🚆Seattle to Los Angeles trainsfrom $148
• 🚆Portland to Los Angeles trainsfrom $142

The Starlight packs the whole West Coast into one seat. Puget Sound first, then the Cascades and Mount Shasta, then the long run down the Central Coast where the track hugs the Pacific between San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara. It runs daily, and the bi-level Sightseer Lounge, the car with the wraparound windows, is still on it in 2026.

Enjoy those windows while they last. In February 2026 Amtrak announced it will replace its entire long-distance fleet with new single-level trains in the early 2030s, and it hasn’t said what happens to the lounge car. Fair warning on the price, too: this is a long-distance train, so the cheap seats go early. Travelers who bought the full Seattle to Los Angeles run on Wanderu in the year to September 2026 typically paid about $243 per ticket.

Amtrak Cascades: Eugene to Vancouver, BC

⏱ about 12 hours end to end; Seattle to Portland is 3 hours 25 minutes

• 🚆Seattle to Portland trainsfrom $29
• 🚆Seattle to Vancouver, BC trainsfrom $37

The Cascades became the newest train in America on September 30, 2026, when it debuted Amtrak’s first Airo trainsets, with panoramic windows, outlets and USB-C at every seat, and four daily trips between Vancouver, BC and Eugene. The whole fleet switches over by early 2027, so from here on the odds are good your Cascades ride is a brand-new train.

The scenery deserves the glass. North of Seattle the track runs right along the Puget Sound shoreline, near enough to pick out herons in the shallows, and the run to Vancouver crosses the border along the water. Seattle to Portland is the workhorse half, and the one our travelers book most.

California Zephyr: Chicago to the San Francisco Bay

⏱ 51 hours 20 minutes end to end

• 🚆Chicago to Emeryville trainsfrom $220
• 🚆Denver to Glenwood Springs trainsfrom $85
• 🚆Sacramento to Reno trainsfrom $60

Ask anyone who takes trains seriously and this is the answer: the Zephyr is the most scenic ride on the Amtrak map. It climbs out of Denver through the Moffat Tunnel, spends the afternoon in Glenwood Canyon on ledges no road reaches, and two days in crosses Donner Pass in the Sierra Nevada. The train ends at Emeryville, with a bus connection across the bay to San Francisco.

Here’s the honest math. Travelers who bought the full Chicago to Emeryville run on Wanderu typically paid about $570 per ticket. The two best days of scenery sell separately for a fraction of that. Denver to Glenwood Springs covers the canyon in under six hours, and Sacramento to Reno crosses Donner Pass in an afternoon. We’ve covered that Sierra crossing in our guide to getting from San Francisco to Lake Tahoe.

Empire Builder: Chicago to Seattle and Portland

⏱ about 46 hours

• 🚆Chicago to Seattle trainsfrom $199
• 🚆Seattle to Whitefish trainsfrom $105

The Builder splits at Spokane, one half going to Seattle and the other down the Columbia River Gorge to Portland. The headline act is Glacier National Park, which the train skirts for an hour of mountain wall and river valley. The Portland section keeps the Sightseer Lounge, so pick that half if the Gorge is your reason.

You don’t need two days on board to see Glacier. Seattle to Whitefish, the little ski-and-lake town at the park’s western door, is an overnight hop our travelers book as its own trip, usually around $161.

Southwest Chief: Chicago to Los Angeles

⏱ about 43 hours

• 🚆Chicago to Los Angeles trainsfrom $155

The Chief follows the route of the old Santa Fe Super Chief, the train the movie stars took, and the landscape still plays the part: Raton Pass on the Colorado border, then a full day of New Mexico and Arizona in red rock and big sky. The Zephyr does its best work in the mountains; the Chief’s show is the open desert.

Adirondack: New York to Montréal

⏱ 10 to 11 hours

• 🚆New York to Montréal trainsfrom $75

Amtrak itself calls the Adirondack one of the ten most scenic train rides in the world, and for once the marketing is underselling it. The first two hours run up the Hudson with the river at the window, and the last stretch before the border follows the western shore of Lake Champlain with the Adirondacks piled up on the other side.

Two things to know before you book. It’s a full day, 10 to 11 hours, for a ticket our travelers typically bought at about $89. And the Montréal run has a history of summer suspensions when heat restrictions hit the tracks north of the border, so if you’re planning a July or August trip, check the schedule before you build plans around it. Autumn is the safer season anyway: this is one of the best fall foliage train rides in the country.

Pennsylvanian: New York to Pittsburgh

⏱ about 9 hours 20 minutes

• 🚆Pittsburgh to New York trainsfrom $78

The Pennsylvanian’s claim to this list is Horseshoe Curve, west of Altoona, where the track bends more than two hundred degrees around a valley head to climb the Alleghenies. It’s the only passenger train that takes it, and the eastbound departure out of Pittsburgh hits the curve in morning light.

Amtrak adds a second daily round trip between New York and Pittsburgh in mid-November 2026, the line’s first extra departure in decades.

Lake Shore Limited: Chicago to New York

⏱ about 20 hours

• 🚆Chicago to New York trainsfrom $114

The overnight classic between Chicago and New York. You board in one skyline and wake up in river country: the eastbound run finishes down the Mohawk and then the Hudson Valley, which is a gentle way to arrive in Manhattan. It’s the practical pick of the Chicago to New York pair, running daily where the Cardinal runs three days a week.

Cardinal: New York to Chicago, the long way

⏱ 26 hours 30 minutes

• Amtrak

The Cardinal takes about six and a half hours longer than the Lake Shore Limited to connect the same two cities, and that’s the point. It detours through the New River Gorge in West Virginia, a national park since late 2020, with the whitewater of one of the continent’s oldest rivers directly below the train.

It runs three days a week, so check the calendar before you plan around it. Both Chicago to New York trains sell on the same route page, so check the departure time to make sure you’re buying the slow, pretty one.

Mardi Gras Service: New Orleans to Mobile

⏱ 3 hours 43 minutes

• 🚆New Orleans to Mobile trainsfrom $21

The first passenger train on the Gulf Coast in about twenty years launched in August 2025 and beat Amtrak’s own ridership projections in its first months. Twice a day each way, under four hours, with the track running along the Mississippi Sound through Bay St. Louis, Gulfport and Biloxi. On the best stretches it’s water on one side and beach towns on the other.

It’s also the cheapest ride on this page. Amtrak launched it with coach fares from $15 end to end; our travelers’ typical ticket ran about $38.

Borealis: Chicago to St. Paul

⏱ about 7 and a half hours

• 🚆Chicago to St. Paul trainsfrom $44

Launched in May 2024 and past a quarter million riders within fourteen months by Amtrak’s count, the Borealis gave the Midwest a day train on its best scenery, the upper Mississippi, where the track runs between the river and five hundred foot bluffs for the better part of two hours around Winona and La Crosse. It’s the same riverbank the Empire Builder crosses in the evening westbound, in daylight, at a day-trip price.