Flightmussy/trainrouter-atlas huggingface dataset:
Empire Builder — Chicago to Seattle (night)
Train: Amtrak Superliner
Operator: Amtrak
Distance: 3550 km
Top speed: 127 km/h
Duration: ≈ 46 h
Opened: 1929
Passengers per year: 400000
Countries: United States
Two nights tracing the Great Northern’s empire — skirting Glacier National Park along the Montana Rockies.
Coast Starlight — Seattle to Los Angeles (scenic)
Train: Amtrak Superliner
Operator: Amtrak
Distance: 2216 km
Top speed: 127 km/h
Duration: ≈ 35 h
Opened: 1971
Passengers per year: 400000
Countries: United States
Cascade volcanoes, Bay fog and a hundred miles of Pacific surf from the parlour car’s armchairs.
Brightline — Miami to Orlando (high-speed)
Train: Siemens Charger sets
Operator: Brightline
Distance: 376 km
Top speed: 200 km/h
Duration: ≈ 3 h 30 min
Opened: 2023
Passengers per year: 2800000
Countries: United States
America’s first private intercity railway in a century — bright yellow, 200 km/h through the palms.
The Canadian — Toronto to Vancouver (night)
Train: Budd stainless dome cars
Operator: VIA Rail
Distance: 4466 km
Top speed: 130 km/h
Duration: ≈ 4 days
Opened: 1955
Countries: Canada
Four nights in 1955 stainless-steel dome cars — Ontario lakeland, prairie infinity, then the Rockies at dawn.
El Chepe — Los Mochis to Chihuahua (scenic)
Train: Chepe Regional
Operator: Ferromex
Distance: 653 km
Top speed: 70 km/h
Duration: ≈ 16 h
Opened: 1961
Countries: Mexico
Sea level to 2,400 m through Copper Canyon — 37 bridges and 86 tunnels in country deeper than the Grand Canyon.
Tren Maya — Cancún to Palenque (classic)
Train: Alstom X’trapolis
Operator: Tren Maya
Distance: 900 km
Top speed: 160 km/h
Duration: ≈ 11 h
Opened: 2023
Countries: Mexico
A brand-new loop through the Yucatán linking Mayan pyramids — Chichén Itzá to Palenque by rail.
Tren a las Nubes — Salta to San Antonio de los Cobres (scenic)
Train: Tourist consist
Operator: Tren a las Nubes
Distance: 217 km
Top speed: 35 km/h
Duration: ≈ 7 h
Opened: 1948
Countries: Argentina
“Train to the Clouds”: zigzags and spirals up the Andes to the La Polvorilla viaduct at 4,220 m.
Serra Verde Express — Curitiba to Morretes (scenic)
Train: Tourist consist
Operator: Serra Verde Express
Distance: 110 km
Top speed: 40 km/h
Duration: ≈ 4 h
Opened: 1885
Countries: Brazil
Down the Serra do Mar through Brazil’s Atlantic rainforest — an 1885 line of viaducts pinned to green cliffs.
Denali Star — Anchorage to Fairbanks (scenic)
Train: Alaska Railroad domes
Operator: Alaska Railroad
Distance: 570 km
Top speed: 95 km/h
Duration: ≈ 12 h
Opened: 1923
Passengers per year: 500000
Countries: United States
Twelve hours of wilderness with Denali filling the dome windows — flag stops still serve trailside cabins.
Andean Explorer — Cusco to Arequipa (night)
Train: Belmond luxury sleeper
Operator: Belmond · PeruRail
Distance: 600 km
Top speed: 90 km/h
Duration: 2 days
Opened: 2017
Countries: Peru
South America’s first luxury sleeper — over a 4,319 m pass and along Lake Titicaca under Andean stars.
Rovos Rail — Pretoria to Victoria Falls (night)
Train: Restored Edwardian stock
Operator: Rovos Rail
Distance: 1600 km
Top speed: 90 km/h
Duration: ≈ 3 days
Opened: 1989
Countries: South Africa|Botswana|Zimbabwe
“The Pride of Africa” — teak-panelled suites through the bushveld to the smoke that thunders.
Nile Valley Sleeper — Cairo to Aswan (night)
Train: Watania sleeping cars
Operator: ENR · Watania
Distance: 879 km
Top speed: 120 km/h
Duration: ≈ 13 h
Opened: 1898
Countries: Egypt
Overnight up the Nile past Luxor’s temples — wake to feluccas and the First Cataract at Aswan.
Al Atlas — Casablanca to Marrakech (classic)
Train: ONCF intercity
Operator: ONCF
Distance: 240 km
Top speed: 160 km/h
Duration: ≈ 3 h
Opened: 1928
Countries: Morocco
Across the Haouz plain to the red city beneath the High Atlas — the classic gateway to the souks.
Madaraka Express — Nairobi to Mombasa (classic)
Train: SGR coaches
Operator: Kenya Railways
Distance: 472 km
Top speed: 120 km/h
Duration: ≈ 5 h
Opened: 2017
Passengers per year: 2000000
Countries: Kenya
Kenya’s standard-gauge flagship crosses Tsavo on elevated spans built so elephants pass beneath.
Addis–Djibouti Railway — Addis Ababa to Djibouti (classic)
Train: Electric SGR sets
Operator: EDR
Distance: 756 km
Top speed: 120 km/h
Duration: ≈ 12 h
Opened: 2018
Countries: Ethiopia|Djibouti
Africa’s first fully electrified cross-border railway — highlands to the Red Sea in a day.
Melbourne XPT — Sydney to Melbourne (night)
Train: XPT (HST derivative)
Operator: NSW TrainLink
Distance: 960 km
Top speed: 160 km/h
Duration: ≈ 11 h
Opened: 1982
Countries: Australia
Australia’s InterCity 125 cousin runs the overnight between its two biggest rivals — cricket ashes optional.
Spirit of Queensland — Brisbane to Cairns (classic)
Train: Diesel tilt train
Operator: Queensland Rail
Distance: 1681 km
Top speed: 160 km/h
Duration: ≈ 25 h
Opened: 2014
Countries: Australia
A tilting train with lie-flat “railbeds” hugging the Coral Sea coast toward the Great Barrier Reef.
Northern Explorer — Auckland to Wellington (scenic)
Train: AK panorama cars
Operator: KiwiRail
Distance: 681 km
Top speed: 100 km/h
Duration: ≈ 11 h
Opened: 1908
Countries: New Zealand
Volcano country: the Raurimu Spiral climbs to Tongariro’s plateau, Ruapehu steaming beyond the glass.
Settle–Carlisle Line — Settle to Carlisle (scenic)
Train: Class 158 Sprinter
Operator: Northern
Distance: 117 km
Top speed: 100 km/h
Duration: 1 h 45 min
Opened: 1876
Countries: United Kingdom
England’s highest main line crests Ais Gill at 356 m after striding across the 24-arch Ribblehead Viaduct, built by navvies camped on Batty Moss.
Night Riviera — London to Penzance (night)
Train: Class 57 with Mk3 sleepers
Operator: Great Western Railway
Distance: 491 km
Top speed: 150 km/h
Duration: 8 h
Opened: 1877
Countries: United Kingdom
Sleeping cars have run west from Paddington since 1877; today’s train hugs Brunel’s storm-lashed Dawlish sea wall to the far tip of Cornwall.
Enterprise — Dublin to Belfast (classic)
Train: De Dietrich push-pull
Operator: Iarnród Éireann · NI Railways
Distance: 181 km
Top speed: 145 km/h
Duration: 2 h 10 min
Opened: 1947
Countries: Ireland|United Kingdom
Jointly run from both capitals since 1947, it rolls over the 1855 Boyne Viaduct at Drogheda and crosses the invisible Irish border without a pause.
Nordlandsbanen — Trondheim to Bodø (scenic)
Train: Di 4 diesel-hauled
Operator: SJ Norge
Distance: 729 km
Top speed: 120 km/h
Duration: 9 h 50 min
Opened: 1962
Countries: Norway
Norway’s longest railway — 729 km of fjordside, forest and bare Saltfjellet plateau, and the country’s only line across the Arctic Circle.
Rauma Line — Dombås to Åndalsnes (scenic)
Train: Class 93 Talent DMU
Operator: SJ Norge
Distance: 114 km
Top speed: 100 km/h
Duration: 1 h 40 min
Opened: 1924
Countries: Norway
Corkscrews down Romsdalen past the 1,100 m Trollveggen — Europe’s tallest vertical cliff — via the Stavem spiral tunnel and stone Kylling Bridge.
Linha do Douro — Porto to Pocinho (scenic)
Train: Série 592 railcar
Operator: CP Comboios de Portugal
Distance: 170 km
Top speed: 120 km/h
Duration: 3 h 20 min
Opened: 1887
Countries: Portugal
Clings to the Douro’s waterline for some 100 km on ledges blasted out in the 1880s, threading UNESCO-listed port-wine terraces past Régua and Pinhão.
Euromed — Barcelona to Valencia (high-speed)
Train: Talgo 250 (S-130)
Operator: Renfe
Distance: 350 km
Top speed: 250 km/h
Duration: 2 h 45 min
Opened: 1997
Countries: Spain
Talgo tilting sets swap the Madrid high-speed line for the classic Mediterranean corridor at Camp de Tarragona, running within sight of the beaches.
Intercités de Nuit Paris–Nice — Paris to Nice (night)
Train: Corail couchette cars
Operator: SNCF Voyageurs
Distance: 1088 km
Top speed: 160 km/h
Duration: 12 h 20 min
Opened: 2021
Countries: France
Relaunched in 2021 as heir to the fabled Train Bleu — board at Austerlitz, wake to the red Estérel cliffs and the sea glittering at Saint-Raphaël.
Schwarzwaldbahn — Offenburg to Konstanz (scenic)
Train: Class 146 double-decker
Operator: DB Regio
Distance: 179 km
Top speed: 120 km/h
Duration: 2 h 30 min
Opened: 1873
Countries: Germany
Robert Gerwig’s 1873 blueprint for mountain railways climbs about 650 m through 39 tunnels and two sweeping double loops high above Triberg.
Mariazellerbahn — St. Pölten to Mariazell (scenic)
Train: Himmelstreppe (Stadler)
Operator: Niederösterreich Bahnen
Distance: 84 km
Top speed: 80 km/h
Duration: 2 h 30 min
Opened: 1907
Countries: Austria
Opened in 1907 and electrified with its own rare 6.5 kV 25 Hz current in 1911, Austria’s grandest narrow-gauge line crests at 892 m in the Gösing Tunnel.
European Sleeper — Brussels to Prague (night)
Train: Refurbished couchette & sleeper cars
Operator: European Sleeper
Distance: 1200 km
Top speed: 160 km/h
Duration: 15 h 30 min
Opened: 2023
Countries: Belgium|Netherlands|Germany|Czechia
Crowdfunded start-up that gave the Low Countries their night train back — via The Hague and Amsterdam to Berlin and the Elbe valley to Prague.
Nightjet — Hamburg to Vienna (night)
Train: Nightjet new generation
Operator: ÖBB
Distance: 1100 km
Top speed: 230 km/h
Duration: 13 h
Opened: 2016
Countries: Germany|Austria
First route to get ÖBB’s new-generation Nightjets in 2023 — Mini Cabin pods for solo travellers and 230 km/h sleeper stock.
Kyiv–Warsaw Sleeper — Kyiv to Warsaw (night)
Train: UZ sleeping cars
Operator: Ukrzaliznytsia
Distance: 780 km
Top speed: 120 km/h
Duration: 14 h
Opened: 2016
Countries: Ukraine|Poland
Wartime lifeline to the EU: at the Bug border every carriage is jacked up and its bogies swapped from 1,520 to 1,435 mm gauge while passengers doze.
RegioJet Night Train — Prague to Košice (night)
Train: RegioJet couchette & sleeper cars
Operator: RegioJet
Distance: 700 km
Top speed: 160 km/h
Duration: 10 h
Opened: 2014
Countries: Czechia|Slovakia
Open-access yellow night train since 2014 — cheap couchettes out of Prague, over the Jablunkov Pass and beneath the dark High Tatras to Košice.
ICN Zagreb–Split — Zagreb to Split (scenic)
Train: RegioSwinger tilting DMU
Operator: HŽPP
Distance: 424 km
Top speed: 140 km/h
Duration: 7 h
Opened: 2004
Countries: Croatia
Tilting railcars lean through the bare karst of the Lika plateau beneath Velebit, then swoop down to the palm-fringed Adriatic at Split.
Bohinj Railway — Jesenice to Nova Gorica (scenic)
Train: Diesel railcar
Operator: Slovenske železnice
Distance: 89 km
Top speed: 75 km/h
Duration: 1 h 50 min
Opened: 1906
Countries: Slovenia
Habsburg Transalpina of 1906: the 6.3 km Bohinj tunnel, the emerald Soča, and Solkan’s 85 m arch — the world’s longest stone rail span.
Prahova Valley Railway — Bucharest to Brașov (classic)
Train: Loco-hauled InterRegio
Operator: CFR Călători
Distance: 166 km
Top speed: 140 km/h
Duration: 2 h 30 min
Opened: 1879
Countries: Romania
Climbs the Prahova gorge past Peleș Castle at Sinaia to Predeal, Romania’s highest station at 1,032 m, beneath the Bucegi’s 2,500 m walls.
ZSSK InterCity — Bratislava to Košice (classic)
Train: ZSSK InterCity
Operator: ZSSK
Distance: 445 km
Top speed: 160 km/h
Duration: 4 h 51 min
Opened: 1872
Countries: Slovakia
Up the Váh valley, then along the 1872 Košice–Bohumín railway — the High Tatras panorama, crowned by 2,655 m Gerlach, sweeps past at Poprad.
WESTbahn — Vienna to Salzburg (classic)
Train: Stadler KISS double-decker
Operator: WESTbahn
Distance: 315 km
Top speed: 200 km/h
Duration: 2 h 30 min
Opened: 2011
Countries: Austria
Austria’s first open-access challenger, running since 2011 — 200 km/h Stadler KISS double-deckers that drove fares down on the Vienna–Salzburg run.
Soko — Belgrade to Subotica (high-speed)
Train: Soko (Stadler KISS 200)
Operator: Srbija Voz
Distance: 182 km
Top speed: 200 km/h
Duration: 1 h 19 min
Opened: 2022
Countries: Serbia
Serbia’s first 200 km/h railway, built with Chinese and Russian contractors — Novi Sad in 36 minutes since 2022, Subotica since October 2025.
Sunrise Express — Tokyo to Izumo (night)
Train: 285 series
Operator: JR West · JR East
Distance: 953 km
Top speed: 130 km/h
Duration: 12 h 8 min
Opened: 1998
Countries: Japan
Japan’s last regular sleeper; the Izumo half splits at Okayama and threads the Hakubi Line gorges to the sacred San’in coast by breakfast.
Tadami Line — Aizu-Wakamatsu to Koide (scenic)
Train: KiHa E120 DMU
Operator: JR East
Distance: 135 km
Top speed: 65 km/h
Duration: 4 h 30 min
Opened: 1971
Countries: Japan
Reopened in 2022 after 11 years of flood repairs; drifts over the mist-wreathed Tadami River bridges through Japan’s deepest snow country.
Hong Kong–Beijing High-Speed Sleeper — Hong Kong to Beijing (night)
Train: Fuxing high-speed sleeper
Operator: China Railway Guangzhou · MTR
Distance: 2439 km
Top speed: 350 km/h
Duration: 10 h 28 min
Opened: 2024
Countries: Hong Kong|China
Fuxing sleeper EMUs leave Kowloon’s skyline at dusk and cross five provinces overnight, rolling into Beijing West before seven in the morning.
Alishan Forest Railway — Chiayi to Alishan (scenic)
Train: DL-class diesel, 762 mm
Operator: Alishan Forest Railway & Cultural Heritage Office
Distance: 71 km
Top speed: 30 km/h
Duration: 5 h
Opened: 1912
Countries: Taiwan
762 mm trains climb 2,186 m in 71 km via the Dulishan spiral and summit switchbacks; fully reopened in 2024, 15 years after Typhoon Morakot.
Nilgiri Mountain Railway — Mettupalayam to Ooty (scenic)
Train: X-class steam rack loco
Operator: Indian Railways (Southern Railway)
Distance: 46 km
Top speed: 30 km/h
Duration: 4 h 50 min
Opened: 1899
Countries: India
India’s only rack railway: X-class steam pushes the blue coaches up 1-in-12 grades from palm plains to Ooty’s tea hills; UNESCO-listed in 2005.
Vande Bharat Express — New Delhi to Varanasi (high-speed)
Train: Vande Bharat EMU
Operator: Indian Railways
Distance: 759 km
Top speed: 130 km/h
Duration: 8 h
Opened: 2019
Countries: India
First of India’s home-built semi-high-speed EMUs (2019), skimming the Gangetic plain from the capital to Hinduism’s holiest city in eight hours.
Death Railway — Bangkok (Thonburi) to Nam Tok (classic)
Train: SRT ordinary (diesel)
Operator: State Railway of Thailand
Distance: 194 km
Top speed: 60 km/h
Duration: 4 h 45 min
Opened: 1943
Countries: Thailand
Built by Allied POWs and Asian labourers in 1942–43; trains still cross the River Kwai bridge and creep over the cliff-hugging Wang Pho viaduct.
KTM ETS — Kuala Lumpur to Butterworth (classic)
Train: Class 93 EMU
Operator: Keretapi Tanah Melayu (KTMB)
Distance: 380 km
Top speed: 140 km/h
Duration: 4 h
Opened: 2015
Countries: Malaysia
Metre gauge yet electric at 140 km/h — among the fastest narrow-gauge trains anywhere — sweeping past Ipoh’s karst hills to the Penang ferry quay.
Tulpar Talgo — Almaty to Astana (night)
Train: Tulpar-Talgo
Operator: Kazakhstan Temir Zholy (KTZ)
Distance: 1300 km
Top speed: 140 km/h
Duration: 16 h 19 min
Opened: 2002
Countries: Kazakhstan
Kazakh-assembled Talgo sets glide low over the steppe, hugging Lake Balkhash’s western shore all night between the old and new capitals.
Jerusalem High-Speed Link — Tel Aviv to Jerusalem (high-speed)
Train: TRAXX-hauled Twindexx
Operator: Israel Railways
Distance: 57 km
Top speed: 160 km/h
Duration: 32 min
Opened: 2018
Countries: Israel
Israel’s first electrified line tunnels and bridges through the Judean Hills to Yitzhak Navon station, 80 m beneath Jerusalem, in half an hour.
City of New Orleans — Chicago to New Orleans (night)
Train: Superliner
Operator: Amtrak
Distance: 1500 km
Top speed: 127 km/h
Duration: 19 h 30 min
Opened: 1947
Countries: United States
Immortalized in Steve Goodman’s 1971 song — overnight down the Mississippi Delta past Memphis, Yazoo City and the Louisiana bayous.
Southwest Chief — Chicago to Los Angeles (classic)
Train: Superliner
Operator: Amtrak
Distance: 3645 km
Top speed: 145 km/h
Duration: 43 h
Opened: 1936
Countries: United States
Heir to the Santa Fe Super Chief, “Train of the Stars” — crests 2,388 m Raton Pass on the old Santa Fe Trail.
Sunset Limited — New Orleans to Los Angeles (classic)
Train: Superliner
Operator: Amtrak
Distance: 3210 km
Top speed: 127 km/h
Duration: 46 h 30 min
Opened: 1894
Countries: United States
America’s oldest train name, running since 1894 — crosses the Pecos River High Bridge and the Chihuahuan Desert three times a week.
Pacific Surfliner — San Diego to San Luis Obispo (scenic)
Train: Surfliner bilevel cars
Operator: Amtrak
Distance: 565 km
Top speed: 145 km/h
Duration: 8 h 45 min
Opened: 2000
Passengers per year: 2000000
Countries: United States
Heir to the 1938 San Diegan — surfboards ride free as double-deckers skim the sand at Del Mar and San Clemente.
Auto Train — Lorton to Sanford (night)
Train: Superliner
Operator: Amtrak
Distance: 1376 km
Top speed: 127 km/h
Duration: 17 h 30 min
Opened: 1971
Countries: United States
Cars and motorcycles ride in autoracks behind the sleepers — often the world’s longest passenger train, nonstop Virginia to Florida.
Durango & Silverton — Durango to Silverton (scenic)
Train: Coal-fired K-36 steam
Operator: Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad
Distance: 72 km
Top speed: 29 km/h
Duration: 3 h 30 min
Opened: 1882
Passengers per year: 200000
Countries: United States
1882 gold-rush narrow gauge — steam-hauled ever since, on the Highline ledge blasted 120 m above the Animas River gorge.
Ocean — Montréal to Halifax (night)
Train: Renaissance
Operator: VIA Rail
Distance: 1346 km
Top speed: 130 km/h
Duration: 24 h
Opened: 1904
Countries: Canada
North America’s oldest continuously named train, since 1904 — overnight past the Matapédia salmon rivers and Chaleur Bay to the Atlantic.
Winnipeg–Churchill — Winnipeg to Churchill (classic)
Train: Budd stainless cars
Operator: VIA Rail
Distance: 1697 km
Top speed: 90 km/h
Duration: 45 h
Opened: 1929
Countries: Canada
Two nights across muskeg and permafrost to Churchill, the polar-bear-and-beluga town on Hudson Bay that no road reaches.
La Trochita — Esquel to Nahuel Pan (scenic)
Train: 1922 Henschel steam
Operator: Provincia del Chubut
Distance: 19 km
Top speed: 45 km/h
Duration: 3 h round trip
Opened: 1945
Countries: Argentina
Theroux’s Old Patagonian Express: 750 mm gauge, 1922 steam locomotives and wood-stove-heated wooden coaches across the steppe.
Trem Vitória a Minas — Vitória to Belo Horizonte (classic)
Train: Vale passenger consist
Operator: Vale
Distance: 664 km
Top speed: 80 km/h
Duration: 13 h 30 min
Opened: 1904
Passengers per year: 1000000
Countries: Brazil
Brazil’s busiest long-distance train — daily along the Rio Doce, sharing metre-gauge tracks with 200-plus-wagon iron-ore trains.
TAZARA — Dar es Salaam to Kapiri Mposhi (classic)
Train: Mukuba Express sleeper
Operator: TAZARA
Distance: 1860 km
Top speed: 100 km/h
Duration: 46 h
Opened: 1976
Countries: Tanzania|Zambia
Mao-era China’s grandest aid project: the ‘Freedom Railway’ gave landlocked Zambia a copper route that bypassed white-ruled Rhodesia.
Dakar TER — Dakar to Diamniadio (classic)
Train: Coradia Polyvalent bi-mode
Operator: SETER
Distance: 36 km
Top speed: 160 km/h
Duration: 45 min
Opened: 2021
Passengers per year: 22600000
Countries: Senegal
West Africa’s first modern electric railway carried 22.6 million riders in 2024, sweeping past Dakar’s gridlock at 160 km/h.
Lagos–Ibadan Train Service — Lagos to Ibadan (classic)
Train: CRRC standard-gauge express
Operator: Nigerian Railway Corporation
Distance: 157 km
Top speed: 150 km/h
Duration: 2 h 45 min
Opened: 2021
Countries: Nigeria
Nigeria’s first double-track standard-gauge line; every grand station bears a national figure’s name, from Wole Soyinka to Obafemi Awolowo.
Abuja–Kaduna Train Service — Abuja to Kaduna (classic)
Train: CRRC standard-gauge express
Operator: Nigerian Railway Corporation
Distance: 186 km
Top speed: 150 km/h
Duration: 3 h
Opened: 2016
Countries: Nigeria
Nigeria’s first standard-gauge railway (2016) links the capital to Kaduna’s Rigasa terminus — far safer than the kidnap-plagued expressway.
Gautrain — Johannesburg to Pretoria (classic)
Train: Electrostar EMU
Operator: Gautrain (Bombela)
Distance: 56 km
Top speed: 160 km/h
Duration: 45 min
Opened: 2010
Passengers per year: 7900000
Countries: South Africa
South Africa’s 160 km/h Electrostars dive under Sandton’s bank towers, stitching Johannesburg to Pretoria in under an hour.
Kuranda Scenic Railway — Cairns to Kuranda (scenic)
Train: Heritage diesel tourist train
Operator: Queensland Rail
Distance: 37 km
Top speed: 40 km/h
Duration: 1 h 55 min
Opened: 1891
Countries: Australia
Navvies hand-carved 15 tunnels and 37 bridges up Barron Gorge in the 1880s; trains still pause at the falls’ lookout above the rainforest.
The Overland — Melbourne to Adelaide (classic)
Train: Journey Beyond day train
Operator: Journey Beyond
Distance: 828 km
Top speed: 115 km/h
Duration: 11 h
Opened: 1887
Countries: Australia
Running since 1887 as the Intercolonial Express, Australia’s oldest interstate rail journey now crosses the Wimmera wheat belt twice weekly.
Coastal Pacific — Picton to Christchurch (scenic)
Train: Great Journeys scenic day train
Operator: KiwiRail
Distance: 348 km
Top speed: 100 km/h
Duration: 5 h 30 min
Opened: 1945
Countries: New Zealand
Pinched between the Kaikōura ranges and Pacific surf past fur-seal colonies, on a line the 2016 quake lifted bodily out of the sea.
Brisbane XPT — Sydney to Brisbane (night)
Train: XPT (HST derivative)
Operator: NSW TrainLink
Distance: 988 km
Top speed: 160 km/h
Duration: 14 h
Opened: 1990
Countries: Australia
The overnight run still books twin sleepers as it corkscrews through the Border Loop spiral, blasted through rainforest ranges in 1932.
The Prospector — Perth to Kalgoorlie (classic)
Train: WDA/WDB diesel railcar
Operator: Transwa
Distance: 653 km
Top speed: 160 km/h
Duration: 6 h 45 min
Opened: 1971
Countries: Australia
Australia’s fastest diesel railcars shadow the 1903 goldfields water pipeline across the Wheatbelt to Kalgoorlie’s Golden Mile.
Joetsu Shinkansen — Tokyo to Niigata (high-speed)
Train: E7 “Toki”
Operator: JR East
Distance: 300 km
Top speed: 275 km/h
Duration: 1 h 29 min
Opened: 1982
Countries: Japan
Dives under the Tanigawa range into Kawabata’s snow country — Tokyo to metres-deep Echigo-Yuzawa powder and Niigata’s sake coast in under ninety minutes.
Akita Shinkansen — Tokyo to Akita (high-speed)
Train: E6 “Komachi”
Operator: JR East
Distance: 663 km
Top speed: 320 km/h
Duration: 3 h 37 min
Opened: 1997
Countries: Japan
Crimson “Komachi” units ride the Hayabusa at 320 km/h to Morioka, then swap to single-track mountain rails past Lake Tazawa — a bullet train on a branch-line stage.
Yamagata Shinkansen — Tokyo to Shinjo (high-speed)
Train: E8 “Tsubasa”
Operator: JR East
Distance: 421 km
Top speed: 300 km/h
Duration: 3 h 10 min
Opened: 1992
Countries: Japan
Japan’s first mini-shinkansen — beyond Fukushima the “Tsubasa” threads re-gauged valley rails beneath Zao’s slopes into cherry and soba country.
Nishi-Kyushu Shinkansen — Takeo-Onsen to Nagasaki (high-speed)
Train: N700S-8000 “Kamome”
Operator: JR Kyushu
Distance: 66 km
Top speed: 260 km/h
Duration: 23 min
Opened: 2022
Countries: Japan
Japan’s newest, shortest bullet line — the white-and-red “Kamome” skims Omura Bay to Nagasaki while politics still debates the missing link to Hakata.
Kurobe Gorge Railway — Unazuki Onsen to Keyakidaira (scenic)
Train: Open torokko cars
Operator: Kurobe Gorge Railway
Distance: 20 km
Top speed: 25 km/h
Duration: 1 h 20 min
Opened: 1953
Countries: Japan
Dam-builders’ narrow-gauge torokko clinging to Japan’s deepest gorge — the full line to Keyakidaira returns in October 2026 after the Noto quake.
Hakone Tozan Railway — Hakone-Yumoto to Gora (scenic)
Train: 3000 “Allegra”
Operator: Hakone Tozan Railway (Odakyu)
Distance: 9 km
Top speed: 40 km/h
Duration: 38 min
Opened: 1919
Countries: Japan
Japan’s oldest mountain railway hauls itself up 1-in-12.5 grades through three switchbacks — hydrangeas brush the windows each June.
Resort Shirakami — Akita to Aomori (scenic)
Train: HB-E300 “Buna” hybrid
Operator: JR East
Distance: 250 km
Top speed: 100 km/h
Duration: ≈ 5 h
Opened: 1997
Countries: Japan
A rapid that idles on purpose — shamisen players aboard, the Sea of Japan breaking at Senjojiki, and UNESCO’s Shirakami beech forests behind the dunes.