200 years of rail travel: part one

1825 - 1899

The worlds great historical train journeys

Words by Gareth Clark

On 27 September 1825, the first-ever passenger rail service steamed out of a colliery in the North East of England, changing the way generations of travellers would experience the world. Two hundred years on, as more people turn their backs on flying in search of a greener, more immersive form of long-distance travel, we pick the train journeys that changed our horizons forever, plus some new routes bringing back the golden age of rail.

Right: The Denali Star rattles across the pure wilderness of Alaska’s backcountry (Stewart L. Sterling)

FIRST SERVICE 1825

The heritage railways of the british isles

Routes: 200+ routes (approximately 965km)

The British Isles are steeped in rail history. In 1807, the world’s first fare-paying passengers paid two shillings to ride the Swansea & Mumbles Railway in horse-drawn carriages. Eighteen years later, in 1825, the first-ever passenger locomotive trundled the Stockton and Darlington Railway across County Durham. On the day of its test run, some 450 people hitched a ride as a new form of travel was born.

Two centuries later, neither of these historic lines is in use, but many still are. Some 211 historical railways operate across the UK alone, spanning 965km of track. Unique experiences are found everywhere, from the tiny Ravenglass and Eskdale Railway, which steams a coastal section of the Lake District National Park in Cumbria, to North Wales, where the oldest surviving railway company in the world still drives its Puffing Billies across Eryri National Park on the Ffestiniog Railway.

Left: The Manx Electric Railway is over 130 years old and still uses its original Victorian rolling stock (Alamy)

The Isle of Man is a particular hotbed for historical train routes. Its Manx Electric Railway (built 1893–99) is the world’s oldest electrified tram to still use its original stock. Here you can also ride the only electric mountain railway in the British Isles, which inches up Snaefell on a route opened in 1895, or hop on a narrow-gauge steam line that uses its original engine and carriages from the 1870s.

Below: The Ffestiniog Railway rolls through Eryri National Park (Shutterstock)

Britain even claims the oldest continually operating line in the world: the Tanfield Railway in North East England. Its tracks were first laid in 1725, when the coal trucks that used it were drawn by horses. Like many of the heritage rail lines and trains on these isles, it is kept alive by enthusiasts giving up their time. Today, you can join volunteer-run steam services for seasonal rides and afternoon tea as you puff between Sunniside and East Tanfield.

This year, to mark the 200th anniversary of the dawn of passenger rail, many historical railways across the British Isles are putting on special events, days and services. The organisation Railway 200 (railway200.co.uk) is also running a touring exhibition train that will be on show around the UK deep into 2026, with exhibits on the history of the railways and how they changed the world and our travels, so check online for dates.

Right: The Tanfield Railway (Shutterstock)

Why we still need steam…

FIRST SERVICE 1854

Semmering Railway, Austria

Route: 41km (Gloggnitz–Mürzzuschlag)

Just a glimpse of the Viennese Alps from your carriage window tells you what a feat this is. The world’s oldest ‘true’ mountain railway – built as part of a route linking Vienna to Trieste – ascends 459m in altitude, crossing more than 100 arched stone bridges along the way. To achieve this, 20,000 labourers dug the rock by hand for six years, and competitions were held to design locomotives capable of the ascent. It was the ultimate Habsburg flex.

Right: The Semmering Railway in Austria passes iconic landmarks like the Kalte Rinne viaduct (Golden Eagle Luxury Trains)

Below: Semmering Railway (Shutterstock)

Today, the Semmering is part of Austria’s Südbahnstrecke line, stretching from Vienna to Graz. But if you want to traverse the dizzying viaducts and plunging valleys of the first-ever UNESCO-listed railway in style, the Golden Eagle Danube Express (pictured) and Majestic Imperator are among the handful of luxury services that include it on itineraries.

Left: The Semmering Railway in Austria passes iconic landmarks like the Kalte Rinne viaduct (Shutterstock)

Highlight:

The section approaching Mürzzuschlag, where you cross the 184m-long Kalte Rinne Viaduct, is among the most heartstopping parts of the journey. majestic-train.com; goldeneagleluxurytrains.com

FIRST SERVICE 1867

Colombo–Badulla Railway, Sri Lanka

Route: 292km (Colombo–Badulla)

Sri Lanka may be known for its tea these days, but in the 19th century, the Teardrop Isle was the world’s third-largest exporter of coffee. To stop it spoiling en route to Colombo, the plantation owners pushed the then-British governors to build a railway from Kandy to the capital. It’s still the backbone of an island network that is the poster child for slow train travel, with highlands that look for all the world like green baize, and jungles where tropical palms threaten to slap the faces of careless
passengers leaning out of doorways and windows.

Left: The Ella Odyssey allows you to gaze down upon tea plantation from steep terraces (Alamy)

Below: The Colombo-Badulla Railway takes you through incredible lush green scenery (Shutterstock)

The Ella Odyssey traces the original line from Colombo, then continues from Kandy to Badulla on a section that was added in the early 20th century. This latter part is arguably the most dramatic of the entire journey. As you inch up to the hill station of Ella, the region’s tea country slides beneath the rails in gently stepped terraces.

Right: Ella Odyssey (Shutterstock)

Highlight:

The Demodara Loop sees the track circle itself north of Ella and thread the iconic Nine Arch Bridge that seemingly bursts from the forest. seatreservation.railway.gov.lk

FIRST SERVICE 1880

Cumbres and Toltec Scenic Railroad, New Mexico & Colorado, USA

Route:103km (Chama–Antonito)

Said to be the longest and highest steam-operated railroad in the US, the Cumbres and Toltec still uses the original engines that were employed to haul silver out of the San Juan Mountains. While the silver boom didn’t last long, this service continued to double as a freight and passenger route linking up remote mountain communities long into the 20th century. When it was finally decommissioned in 1969, it was the last steam engine left hauling freight in the US.

Right: Cumbres and Toltec scenic railroad (Lorem ipsum)

Below: Cumbres and Toltec scenic railroad (Lorem ipsum)

These days, its train tours (May–Oct) are steeped in the geology of an area spanning the Rio Grande Rift and San Juan Volcanic Field. Themed rides offer a dive into prehistory, while others are timed to give hikers on the Continental Divide Trail a lift back to Chama.

Left: Cumbres and Toltec scenic railroad (Shutterstock)

Highlight:

Live out your celluloid dreams. For those more into film history, this is the train that was used in the opening of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. cumbrestoltec.com

FIRST SERVICE 1881

Darjeeling Himalayan Railway, India

Route: 88km (New Jalpaiguri–Darjeeling)

Dubbed the ‘Toy Train’ (pictured right), this narrow-gauge railway is one of three UNESCO-listed railroads in India (including Nilgiri and Kalka-Shimla). Its creation also owes everything to the restorative properties of Himalayan air.

In the early 19th century, Darjeeling was founded as a hill station (at 2,045m) and a health retreat for officers of the British Raj. As its popularity grew, a cheaper way of ferrying up necessities was needed. With the train barely topping 12km/h, it did (and does) so at a snail’s pace, taking seven hours. But as you wind up above the tea plantations, before the mists swirl and the peaks bear down, it is the most glorious of slow pleasures.

Left: Woman harvesting plants on a tea plantation (Alamy)

Highlight:

The Batasia Loop circles a memorial in honour of the Gorkhas who died fighting for India’s independence. irctc.co.com

FIRST SERVICE 1882

Durango & Silverton, Colorado, USA

Route: 72.7km (Durango–Silverton)

One of the last-surviving narrow-gauge railways (pictured) linking up the mining towns of the San Juan Mountains is also one of the most spectacular, rattling above the aspen forests of the Animas valley at elevations of nearly 3,000m.

The track – a branch of the Denver & Rio Grande Railway – was built in nine months in the late 19th century. At times, its steam and diesel engines slide up the canyon walls on ledges barely wide enough for the rails. It’s a truly remarkable legacy of the 1870s gold-rush era and the ingenuity it inspired.

Right: Durango & Silverton (Shutterstock)

Below: Durango & Silverton (Shutterstock)

Today, you can chug the mountains on two round-trip routes: the high line to Cascade Canyon (five hours), which shines brightest in the winter, or the tracks to the old mining town of Silverton (nine hours, including a two-hour stop).

Left: Durango and Silverton (Shutterstock)

Highlight:

Silverton is a glorious time capsule of the 19th century. Its buildings boast wooden frontages and colourful signs that channel its gold-rush heyday. durangotrain.com

FIRST SERVICE 1883

Bergen Line, Norway

Route: 471km (Oslo–Bergen)

Some 182 tunnels were dug through the Langfjellene mountains and the Hardangervidda, Europe’s largest high mountain plateau, to connect Oslo and the port at Bergen. The result is an unforgettable ride through lonely fjords, vast glaciers and impossibly lush valleys. The line’s highest station, Finse (1,222m), is frequently described as a ‘mini Antarctica’, having been used in the past by explorers such as Ernest Shackleton to prepare for polar voyages. There are also plenty of even wilder stops en route. Skiing Mecca Geilo ushers in some of the most spectacular mountain scenery, and Voss is Norway’s adrenaline capital, packed with rafting, hiking and cycling. By the time you reach Bergen and its UNESCO-listed waterfront, you might just be too exhausted to explore.

Left: Take a break at Bergen’s UNESCO-listed waterfront (Shutterstcok)

Highlight:

At Myrdal, take a detour along the Flåm Railway, one of the steepest standard-gauge lines in the world, which descends nearly 900m over just 20km to the magnificent and remote Aurlandsfjord. vy.no

FIRST SERVICE 1883

Douro Line, Portugal

Route: 160km (Porto–Pocinho)

The UNESCO-listed Douro Valley is known for one thing in particular: port wine. This was once transported via flat-bottomed rabelo boats, inching along the winding river past terraced vineyards built on impossibly steep hillsides.

When it comes to scenery, little has changed. But in the latter part of the 19th century, the Douro Line (pictured) was built to speed up the delivery of the region’s wine. Mirroring the waterway, it stops at iconic port towns such as Régua, gateway to Portugal’s wine country, and Pinhão, where azulejo tile murals at the station tell the story of the region. Today, retro carriages offer a magnificent setting for a slow rail adventure (about 3.5 hours for the full route) through a vineyard-scattered land that still defiantly operates at its own pace.

Right: Douro Line, Portugal (Shutterstock)

Highlight:

Beyond Pinhão, the route gets wilder and has fewer stops as you thread gorges, dams and bridges to Pocinho, making it worth staying on until the end. cp.pt

FIRST SERVICE 1883

Orient Express, France to Türkiye

Route: 2,740km (Paris–İstanbul)

The launch of the original Express d’Orient was a thing of wonder. Carrying just 40 passengers, the round-trip from Paris to İstanbul took seven days. It sold an idea of pure luxury, taking its inspiration from the USA’s early sleeper trains, only draping them in European excess: wood panelling, silverware, silk sheets. Tales of kings, tsars and spies on the route only enhanced the train’s reputation. But by 1977, the original service had made its final journey.

Left: Orient Express (Alamy)

Below: The Orient Express (Shutterstock)

The train’s name and route has since been resurrected, with Belmond’s Venice Simplon-Orient-Express (pictured top and bottom) running a special trip each year that roughly follows the original İstanbul route. In addition, a new Orient Express service by Accor, using 17 restored cars from the original train, is due to launch in late 2026 on a simlar journey, offering more people the chance to experience a piece of rail history.

Right: The Orient Express (Shutterstock)

Highlight:

Passengers aboard the first-ever Orient Express trip were invited to visit the Neo-Renaissance Peleș Castle in Sinaia, Romania, at the king’s request. It’s now an iconic stop on the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express.
belmond.com; orient-express.com

FIRST SERVICE 1884

Serra Verde Express, Brazil

Route: 110km (Curitiba–Paranaguá)

Designed and built by André and Antônio Rebouças, brothers often cited as ‘the first Black engineers in Brazil’, this single-track, narrow-gauge line rises spectacularly into the Serra do Mar mountains, from where some of the oldest rainforest in the world can be seen spilling across the land below. It’s a remarkable piece of engineering, arriving at the tail-end of Imperial Brazil, by which time Curitiba had become a hub for timber and coffee in need of a rail line to the port at Paranaguá. It came at a high cost: nearly half those who laboured on the track were said to have died during its construction.

Right: Serra Verde Express ()

Below: Serra Verde Express (Shutterstock)

These days, this four-hour journey is a popular route (pictured) in a country where so few railways are open to passengers. It’s also an unforgettable one, as you thread the Atlantic Rainforest and rattle over one of the first-ever curved viaducts to Morretes, where this service now ends. But it’s worth pausing to recall what it cost to build.

Left: Serra Verde Express (Shutterstock)

Highlight:

Don’t miss Morretes, a town of well-preserved 18th-century architecture that is famed for its slow-cooked beef stew. serraverdeexpress.com.br

FIRST SERVICE 1888

U Trinichellu, Corsica, France

Route: 232km (Bastia-Corte-Ajaccio)

This ‘Little Train’ (U Trinichellu), as locals know it, was no small feat. It took 20,000 labourers two decades to complete the island’s narrow-gauge railway network, linking up the west (Ajaccio, Calvi) and east coasts (Bastia) of Corsica across 52 bridges and some dizzying viaducts. The Pont du Vecchio, built by Gustav Eiffel just a couple of years after finishing his famous Parisian tower, catches the eye as you round on the fortress town of Corte, the island’s cultural hub in the 18th century. In the 1960s, there were island-wide protests when this rail service came under threat. It survived by modernising, although some of its older wood-panelled carriages escaped the refit and offer a taste of the old Corsica on a route that often takes in maquis-smothered mountains and wild rocky shores in just a single short trip.

Left: The little train makes its way over the Eiffel Crossing, Corsica (Shutterstock)

Highlight:

A coastal line branches off between Ponte-Leccia and medieval Calvi, practically touching the waters of the Balagne coast as it goes. train-corse.com

FIRST SERVICE 1891

The Neretva Line, Bosnia & Herzegovina and Croatia

Route: 194km (Sarajevo, B&H–Ploče, Croatia)

Built by Austria-Hungary following its occupation of what is now Bosnia & Herzegovina in 1878, celebratory cannon fire greeted the first service that pulled into Sarajevo. It perhaps proved an ill omen. In 1914, Archduke Ferdinand arrived in the city on his own train; five days later, following his assassination, his body was carried back as Europe collapsed into conflict and Austria-Hungary fell apart.

This rail route had fallen into disuse until recently. It only restarted as a seasonal service (Jun-Aug) in the last couple of years, with the section between Mostar and Sarajevo among the most striking on the route. Stops also offer an eye of the turmoil that embroiled the region in the 20th century, from the famed bridge in Mostar (destroyed in 1993 and rebuilt; pictured) to the memorial for the Battle of Neretva at Jablanica, where partisans held off the Axis forces in 1943.

Right: The Neretva line takes you through some of the most beautiful landscapes that the Balkans has to offer (Shutterstock)

Highlight:

The section of track between Mostar and Konjic sees you skim a narrow path between water and sheer rock. zfbh.ba

FIRST SERVICE 1896

Odontotos Railway, Greece

Route: 22.35km (Diakopto–Kalavryta)

Part of an ambitious (and never completed) scheme to connect up the whole of Greece by rail in the late 19th century, this narrow-gauge cog railway carves a slow route through the sheer walls of the Vouraikos Gorge (pictured) in the northernmost tip of the Peloponnese. Its inland destination is Kalavryta, a ski town that was the site of a brutal massacre during the Second World War. Even today, its tiny Holocaust Museum is unforgettably moving and well worth a visit. Unusually, you are also free to walk the entire rail line, following the tracks on foot across 49 bridges and through hand-carved tunnels. Keep an ear out for the train along the way, though, which frequently has to jam on its brakes as pedestrians loom close.

Left: The Odontotos Railway carves its tracks through the sheer walls of Vouraikos Gorge (Shutterstock)

Highlight:

A stop halfway (Zachlorou) lets you walk to the 4th-century Mega Spilaio, which claims to be the oldest continually occupied monastery in Greece. hellenictrain.gr

FIRST SERVICE 1898

Tren Turístico de la Sabana, Colombia

Route: 50km (Bogotá La Sabana–Zipaquirá)

At its early 20th-century peak, this route spanned 200km, linking the suburbs and small villages on the edge of Bogotá. Today’s tourist train (pictured inset) offers a truncated version, departing from the capital’s Neoclassical La Sabana station and heading across the Andean savannah to Zipaquirá, a town known since pre-Columbian times for its salt. The train allows ample time to explore the salt mines here, within which you’ll find a spectacular cathedral (pictured) that was dug 200m beneath a mountain in the 1990s. It accommodates 8,000 worshippers and still holds mass on Sundays.

Right: The Neretva line takes you through some of the most beautiful landscapes that the Balkans has to offer (Shutterstock)

Highlight:

To reach the cathedral, you’ll pass 14 chapels created from salt, each depicting a station of the cross. Book at La Sabana.

FIRST SERVICE 1899

Brocken Railway, Germany

Route: 19km (Drei Annen Hohne–Brocken)

Several narrow-gauge railways were built in the Harz Mountains in the late 19th century to link up its remote communities. Today, around 140km of this network still exists, accommodating 25 steam and 16 diesel trains that date back as far as the 1950s. These continue to ferry visitors up the slopes year-round. The standout route is the Brockenbahn (pictured left), one of Germany’s highest non-cogwheel railways. In one hour, trains ascend a mountain steeped in legends. Even today, the fabled Walpurgisnacht (the night of 30 April), when witches were said to gather on Brocken to marry the devil, still sees wild celebrations in the villages of the Harz. And in the 1960s, the mountain was commandeered by an altogether different menace, as Stasi spies used it to carry out surveillance across the West German border.

Left: The Brockenhaus Museum (Alamy)

Highlight:

The Brockenhaus Museum at the top of the mountain details the myths and history of Brocken’s past. en.harzinfo.de