The Coast Starlight

The Coast Starlight is acknowledged as one of the United States' most scenic rail journeys, travelling almost the length of the west coast from Seattle to Los Angeles, through three states and many different landscapes.

Leaving Seattle, the train is soon passing mighty Mount St. Helens and winding its way through Washington state and into Oregon, through majestic pine forests and alongside rivers. Crossing into Oregon, the train calls at Portland and begins to climb into the Cascades, the northern section of the Rocky Mountains. Lumber is a big industry here and the fragrant scent of cut pine is often detected on the train.

Crossing into California, Mount Shasta dominates the scenery and the train follows the Sacramento River Canyon through gold-rush towns like Redding and Sacramento itself before arriving in Emeryville, home of Pixar studios and the place to disembark for connections to San Francisco. The section beyond San Francisco follows "El Camino Real", the old Spanish missionary trail that takes the train through Silicon Valley and along the stunning Southern Californian coast, through Santa Barbara to Los Angeles.

The overnight journey on the Coast Starlight offers sleeping accommodation in Superliner coaches, the most modern of Amtrak's fleet, with the options of simple roomettes to fully en-suite bedrooms.