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The Cascades, built for ultrahigh speeds, can do only 79 m.p.h. on existing tracks, but its pendular suspension means it doesn't have to slow down going around curves--of which this route has many. For much of the way, you skirt the shores of the lovely Willamette, Columbia and Toutle rivers. The view gets even more spectacular as you follow the coastline of the vast and misty Puget Sound. So close to the water do you ride that you often feel you're not on a train at all but on a boat, with blue water and skies as far as you can see. While you're being served breakfast or lunch on white linen tablecloths in the dining car, you can see gulls and great blue herons wheeling close by, ducks paddling in the marshes and even furry, bewhiskered sea otters that frolic in the water and clamber up the beach toward you. If the day is clear, you can catch glimpses of Mount Hood and Mount Rainier, and you'll pass forests of fir and cedar. For man-made wonders, look for the formidable container ships in Seattle's harbor and the giant Boeing plant. Whether you travel north or south on the Cascades, be sure to nab a waterside seat www.amtrakcascades.com 800-USA-RAIL). --By Francine Russo
OVERLAND TRAIL CLICKETY-CLACK BACK TO A MORE GRACIOUS PAST If there is a time machine that allows you to relive the days when going by rail meant going in style, when women dressed up and wore gloves and men sported fedoras and suits with wide lapels, it is the Overland Trail, a 1939 club lounge car that was once a part of the Southern Pacific streamliner that ran from Oakland, Calif., to Chicago. Owners Bill and Debbie Hatrick of Santa Ana, Calif., have restored the car to its original condition and made it available for private parties and public excursions.
This year the Overland Trail will travel with a regular Amtrak train every second Saturday, starting May 13 and ending Dec. 9. The round trips will all originate in Oakland, with either Los Angeles or Santa Barbara as the destination, and fares will range from $125 to $595. Hors d'oeuvres will be served on the short runs, complete meals on longer trips. On the June 17 ride to Los Angeles, passengers will be asked to pay homage to the '40s by dressing in the fashions of that era.
Going along for the ride on every trip is Earl Nickles, a train buff and local barber who'll give you an on-train trim for a $5 donation. Most of the streamliners of yesteryear had barbershops, Nickles explains. They were "an amenity for business travelers from the '30s to the late '50s. It was all part of the time when train travel was gracious" www.overlandtrail.com 800-KEY-RAIL). --E.M.
CUMBRES & TOLTEC A REAL ROCKY MOUNTAIN RAILROAD HIGH
In the opening scene of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, young Indy gallops toward a smoke-billowing circus train and leaps aboard. That engine and those tracks are part of the Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad, a Hollywood favorite and the highest and longest narrow-gauge railroad in the U.S. But seeing it onscreen doesn't compare with riding it firsthand, as 70,000 tourists and train buffs do each year.