TRAVEL TALK - - VOLUME 4 - - SPRING/SUMMER 2011 TRAIN TRAVEL IS STILL ROLLING. People still have a fascination with trains causing Canada's Via Rail to invest millions in upgrading trains and facilities. Our agency sells Amtrak Vacations, Via Rail programs like the cross Canada rail trip and even private Canadian Trains like Rocky Mountaineer. I am pretty sure everybody is familiar with train service in Alaska including the famous Denali Star Trains from Anchorage or Fairbanks for America's Northernmost National Park. In Europe, we handle Rail Europe individual tickets and rail passes along with some of the famous trains in Europe including the Chunnel, Glacier Express, Orient Express and the El Transcantabrico Rail Tour.
When I operated jet charters to the Caribbean, I never even thought about the fact that train travel in the world is still alive and well. Since I have worked as a travel agent, I have sold many of the great train journeys in the world and I am excited to write about train travel in a modern world. In Europe, the train system is taken for granted as is most public transport. Sometimes the cost of a train ticket rivals that of a plane ticket, but you actually see more of the country and have the advantage of going from City Center to City Center. Most airports in the world are located on the outskirts of a city, so you have a hefty taxi fare or some other kind of complicated movement like the Air France Bus in Paris where you get dropped off at the Arc d Triumph and get to your accommodation from there. Many cities have public transport with a line to the airport, but you have to get your luggage onboard and pay a 10e or 15e fare for the ride all the way out to the airport. I program a lot of FIT (Foreign Independent Travel) in Western Europe and it almost always includes a couple of train tickets or a rail pass depending on the situation. Usually it takes at least three rides before a rail pass makes sense, unless you plan to use it for jump-off trips from a city and the fast trains usually have a surcharge, even when you have a pass. We issue tickets directly on Rail Europe and we can do so for most of the trains on the continent. The Eurostars, TVGs and other fast trains. These do upwards of 250 or 300 mph when they get going so you can go from Rome to Florence in 2 hours or from Milan to Paris in about 7. When doing an FIT itinerary, we usually do the trains last. Many countries do not allow train ticket issue until about 60 days prior to departure and a lot of the cheaper fares are nonrefundable so buy insurance. We are moving to e-ticketing on trains even though we maintain an account with Rail Europe (through Travelworld our host agency). Just a few months ago, we issued real train ticket stock but we are making the transition to e-ticketing and the stations will have automatic machines that will just issue boarding passes for the train. Have us plan your next Europe trip and take a ride on a fast train, its a blast. We have been learning more and more about our neighbor Canada and it is a fascinating country. Via Rail is the national train system in Canada which is a little better funded than Amtrak with higher local ridership. The Trans-Canada Rail Vista usually runs about ten nights. Passengers start in Toronto and end in Vancouver (or vice versa) and travel three days on the Via Rail's "Canadian". This is a three day rail journey across Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and finally Alberta provinces of Canada. Couples are given a private sleeping car and all gourmet meals are included on these 1950's refurbished pullmen coaches. Upon arrival in Jasper, there is usually a couple of overnights with a tour of the area followed by a full day tour, including the ice fields, down to Banff on the icefields highway. After two nights of touring Banff, riding the gondola and seeing Lake Louise it's off on the Rocky Mountaineer for a daytime trip across the Rocky Mountains to Vancouver. The Rocky Mountaineer only travels during the day and pulls off in Kamloops for an overnight hotel stay. This is one of the most prestigious trains in Canada and offers three levels of service. Red Leaf is the basic service with a big picture window and cold plated breakfast/lunch. Silver Leaf service upgrades the meals to hot meals in the restaurant and offers baggage service in Kamloops. Gold Leaf travels in dome cars with a dining car below, hot meals, an outdoor verandah to shoot pictures and luggage service in Kamloops. Rocky Mountaineer can be sold separately from the Trans-Canada journey and we frequently add this to an Alaska cruise from Vancouver. Speaking of an Alaska cruise, many people do some train travel to Denali before or after an Alaska Cruise. Holland America and Princess operate Gray Line of Alaska (part of Carnival Corp.) and they all offer land tours to add to any north or southbound cruise. When I first expanded from doing the Caribbean, I asked an employee of the Alaska Railroad Corp. if it was the same trains that the cruise line used. His response was "sure, they hook their cars to our train" which got me to thinking about how little time many cruise tour groups get on the train as it is more cost effective to give them a day of train and the rest motorcoach. A few years later, I have done a few of these trips for adventurous clients that do not want to cruise including one where clients saw all of the parks in Alaska including Kenai Fjords that they said was less crowded and more beautiful than Denali. Alaska railroad offers Adventure Class and Gold Service. The Gold service features dome cars with verandahs.
Not to be left out, America has some of the classic train rides in the world. We were a mechanically inclined industrial society a few hundred years ago with a huge country that need to be traversed so many small private railroads were set up to get people, goods and commodities from point A to point B. In California, the Skunk Train (see California blog in this same newsletter) originally was set up to haul Redwood out of the forests or the narrow guage Durango to Silverton Train in Colorado. We have escorted tours that offer these trains as part of the tour plus there are trains that have been converted to purely tourism use like the Napa Valley Wine Train that serves a great gourmet lunch and wine tasting as you run up the Napa Valley. Finally, we offer Amtrak Vacations in America including sleeping accommodations and stop offs in cities along the way. Most popular Amtrak routes are the California Zephyr, Sunset Limited from New Orleans to Los Angeles or the Silver Service Palmetto from New York to Orlando, FL. We are glad to speak with you about booking train travel across the North American Continent or across the world. |
|
5208 East Fowler Ave., Suite 1A, Temple Terrace, FL 33617 copyright 2011 - Market Access Promotions, Inc. dba/Vacation Tour & Cruise |
