My vote goes to the North Coast Limited. Very nice paint, very family friendly, and certainly one of the most scenic routes on the American continent.
I voted for the Olympian Hiawatha.Over 600 miles of electrified trackage over two mountain ranges,with a non electrified gap in the middle,with a full length dome.This train also had the famous Skytop pullman observation cars.
I went with the Empire Builder. I saw where both it and the Northcoast Limited ran, what INCREDIBLE, breathtaking scenery!
Having ridden all but the Northwest Spesial and Mountaineer my vote goes to the Great Northern EMPIRE BUILDER. First rode the streamliner the month it entered service in February 1947 and every year thereafter until 1959. I enjoyed the Builder best after it received domes. Afdter all it had more dome seats than any other train in the US until Autotrain in 1971.
I didn’t pick one from this group but thought that CPR’s The Canadian needs a mention as well. still runs though admittedly by Via on the CN instead of the more senic CPR route.
Rob
Well, I didn´t want to bring in The Canadian, because I wanted to make a clear difference between US and Canadian trains. Ok, The Mountaineer was an international train operating in both countries, and I did bring him in just because of the fact that this train also had some cars in his consist which were headed for Seattle, so they would be in the US Northwest finally. And this is not the fact with The Canadian or Supercontinental. In my eyes, those trains are Canadian southern transcontinental trains, since they both start in the far east at Montreal and go all the way along the southern boundary of Canada to the pacific coast. Well, the Supercontinental did not travel that much along Canada´s southern boundary, but still not enough to be called a Northwest train, because of the fact that Canda is still incredibly huge north of Edmonton, and also by the fact that there is almost no railroads travelling through Yukon Territory (Canada´s Northwest).
Sothern Pacific’s Daylight for sure! I love this train! Along with many others of course…but this one makes my top 10!