Alaska Eisenbahn Aurora Winter Anchorage nach Fairbanks One Way

So excited to do this 12 hour train ride from Anchorage to Fairbanks through the wilds of Alaska. We had a short wait for the window to open, but check in went smooth even though it was fairly crowded. We didn't realize that we were to do baggage check in while waiting in the depot to board until someone told us. We boarded at 8:00 am and departed at 8:30 am. All seats faced the front of the train and we were assigned seats. Our seat's window was not fully at our seat (the space between windows blocked part of our view). There were two passenger cars, a dining car and 2 restrooms at the back of each passenger car. Our car was sort of noisy and our view wasn't the best, so we checked with our car host and he said that we could move to the other car which wasn't full and much quieter. Each car had a host that pointed out wildlife, points of interest and answered questions. We had a great time with Lauren our host, she was very informative and told us some great stories. Each car had their own time to go to the dining car. We were served breakfast, lunch and dinner. The meals were good: for breakfast we had barley hot cereal with fruit compote and coconut milk, hot mint tea, biscuits with gravy & sausage; lunch we ate angus burgers, chips, beer; dinner there was caesar salad with chicken and pot roast with mashed potatoes. The scenery was beautiful with lakes, rivers, mountains and forests. We spotted moose, bald eagles and dall sheep. We went through Willow the official start of the Iditarod race, had short stops at Talkeetna and Denali, our stops were short because we were running late. We had different stops along the way called Flag stops where we would pick up passengers that live out in the middle of nowhere and use the train for transportation to the cities. Went over Hurricane Bridge our highest elevation of 2,253 ft. Some areas we could only go 5 mph so not to create a landslide. We were suppose to have arrived in Fairbanks at 8:00 pm but we didn't get in until 9:30 pm. The last part of the trip it was dark so we were ready to get off, but we really enjoyed the rest of our journey through beautiful Alaska.

Tremendous scenery along the journey. Great meal service, comfortable coaches and seating. Friendly and knowledgeable staff providing local information periodically throughout the journey. Well worth the experience.

I took a book expecting to spend much of the 12 hour ride reading, but enjoyed the scenery and the crew’s commentary on history and wildlife so much that I never even opened my book. I highly recommend this adventure. I do have to warn you that the dining car meals are disappointing - not great offering’s, but worse, the food arrives cold. Stick to a sandwich or snacks from the bistro.