Many of us Boomers grew up with a toy train set at home. I had to laugh when I recently sold a home for a couple hilarious senior citizens and discovered the entire basement housed a miniature train set and scenery that he built over the years with fake mountains, a town with a gas station, bank, etc. He found a guy in Denver who came over and bought/trucked the entire thing back to his home before we sold the house.

Utah is famous for a big part of train history in the U.S. In 1869 the rails from the West Coast were connected to the rails of the East Coast at Promontory Summit in what was then called Utah Territory. On May 10^th of that year a 17.6-karat golden spike was driven in as the last piece of completion that changed transportation history forever here.

Now a new luxury scenic train called the Canyon Spirit is going to be expanding its route next April to offer a three-day, daytime journey between Denver and Salt Lake City with an overnight stay in Moab and Glenwood Springs, Colorado. This new route will feature a train with custom-designed glass domed coaches so you can see the fabulous Utah and Colorado vistas and offer gourmet dining options and alcoholic drinks while you ride. It’s a ‘daylight’ service that stops each night at a hotel destination rather than have sleeper cars.  The train will slow down for a particularly scenic locations for photos. Basically, this is a unique way to see the sights, but not a fast way to travel and tourists will love it. They will allow a small number of children on the train each season, but they must be old enough to sit in their own seat as the coaches are not equipped for car seats or lap-held infants. Service animals are allowed but must be applied for to ride 60 days in advance of traveling.

This new Canyon Spirit is a morph of what was known as the Rocky Mountaineer that offered a similar route and means of travel in 2021 and will have their last ‘Rockies to the Red Rocks’ tour this week before the new service takes over next spring. But the Rocky Mountaineer has scenic train offerings in Vancouver Jasper, Kamloops, Lake Louise and Banff as well as Vancouver, Whistler and Quesnel.

This scenic tour isn’t cheap-somewhere between $2,100-$2,500 per person. Don’t panic though, as you can also take Amtrak’s California Zephyr that travels between Salt Lake City and Denver. That journey takes 15 hours and costs between $55-$190 for a one way coach seat. The further in advance you book, the cheaper the ticket. The train leaves Salt Lake City once a day and doesn’t take the same scenic route as the Canyon Spirit or have the glass domed cars but still offers scenic vistas of the West.  It originates in either Chicago or San Francisco.