Your Longest Continuous Train Trip

AJ_Fox

Moderator
I will start it out. San Francisco to Orlando. Three nites and four days. No stopover times please.

Cheers

AJ
 
Unfortunately I've never had the privilege of travelling on an overnight train, so the longest train trip in terms of distance travelled and time spent that I've travelled on was a Hotham Valley Tourist Railway diesel-hauled day tour train to the Western Australian Wheatbelt town of Wickepin, back in 1994. Although it's only 214 kilometres from Perth as the crow flies, the journey by rail is substantially longer as it is not direct (probably around 300km or so).

Because of this, the trip there and back took most of the day (not not mention speed restrictions on the branchline to Wickepin added to the journey time too). As well, the return trip took substantially longer than the forward journey, on account of an hour spent waiting at a siding for a crew change, the fresh crew arriving by car (in those days tour trains were driven by Westrail crews, hence the need to wait for a replacement crew).

By the time we finally arrived back at Perth City station, it was nearly midnight, by which time suburban services had already ceased (due to it being a Sunday night), and the station was in the process of closing for the night. Still a great trip either way. :)

As for times spent on the train, well, it's been many years since then so I can no longer remember exactly, but I think we left around 9:30am, arrived by 1pm, and departed on the return trip around 5pm, arriving back at Perth at midnight. So, I spent a good 12 hours or so on that tour. :)
 
Last edited:
Philadelphia to Chicago overnight drinking in the bar car all night long, arrived early in the morning at Great Lakes Naval Training Center, hung and sick with a huge headache. Welcome to the Navy!
A worse day, I can't remember...
 
Memphis>Chicago>New York>Ft. Lauderdale.

I'm not sure what you mean by 'no stopover times', but this route did involve changing trains in Chicago and New York. My wife and I wanted to take this route on our honeymoon just to see some countryside that we hadn't seen before. As I recall, it was 3 days, 2 nights.

Mike

edit: I went back and calculated the mileage by Amtrak's timetables and Memphis>Chicago>New York>Ft Lauderdale is a total of 2623 miles. The return trip was from Ft. Lauderdale>New Orleans>Memphis

I've also been from St. Louis>Los Angeles on a trip, then L.A.>Oakland>Denver>St Louis on the return leg.
 
Last edited:
Nowhere near days long but for a 370 mile express trip, I was on the train for 7 1/2 hours. Average journey speed was less than 50mph on a 120mph route.

I had my ticket booked and the week before I travelled, the Hatfield crash happened which meant emergency speed limits while track was checked. Only upside was I had a 1st class ticket...
 
Berlin,CT-Winterhaven,FL I had a roomette and loved it it was worth the extra $$$ Left At 6:50 am And Arrive the next day at 3:30pm
 
Chicago to Peoria on the Rock Island Rocket. 175 miles in 450 minutes, a lot of it at 10(!) mph. At least they didn't put it on the ground, which was not uncommon with the "Rocket."
 
San Diego, CA to Chicago, IL. on Amtrak, then Metra to Great Lakes IL. I was in the USN and I was transferring from Basic Electronics School to Electronics Technician School.

I was sick on the whole trip, turns out I had contracted mono...

Hmmmm, Euphod, I sense a pattern here.......
 
Kings Cross - Fort William, overnight.

Something like 11 hrs i think, 9pm - 8am.

Nothing like the distances that can be travelled in other parts of the world.

IKB.
 
Well, I've done London-Paris and Glasgow-London, but favourite was London-Glasgow-Edinburgh sleeper. It was the day that England beat Holland in Euro '96, so there was a lot of merriment in the bar car as we headed up the West Coast Mainline that night!

Paul
 
Birmingham - Rome with my 4 month old son in a pram... About 22 hours, including overnight seats from Paris to Rome (booked too late for couchettes).

Paul
 
San Jose CA. to Los angeles, 3 hour change of trains then on to the stop before Ft Worth TX.
Almost as long was a San Jose to Houston trip.
Unfortunately you can no longer do this. The connection in L. A. no longer works. :(
 
Brisbane - Cairns - Brisbane Tilt-Train, 1700km 26hr each way.

A must do trip in Australia.

Beats driving any day.

Cheers,

Bill.
 
When I was in New Zealand I went on a train called the Overlander. I spent so much time on that train that we even came up with a new card game similar to Uno and we named in in honour of the train. :D
 
Back
Top