To Plan A Trip

Contact American Orient Express (call 877-854-3545 or visit www.americanorientexpress.com ) for information on upcoming trips. The company also runs American Spirit Rail Tours, which consists of daylight runs through the Pacific Northwest and the American Rockies (888-533-7245; www.americanspiritrail.com ). Rocky Mountaineer Railtours puts together packages that you can take before or after its two-day trip. It’ll arrange any number of permutations: a few days at the Chateau Lake Louise or at one of the many fine hotels in Banff (I stayed at the splendid Rimrock), plus sightseeing tours of the region (800-665-7245; www.rockymountaineer.com ).

Things are reportedly looking up for Amtrak, which plans to add some routes and upgrade service on existing ones. The Coast Starlight, one of its best and most popular trains, follows a route similar to that of the train I took. It doesn’t travel through the Feather River Canyon and certainly doesn’t take a week, but Bob Johnston, our onboard lecturer, called it “a lovely train.”

VIA Rail remains in my future. A two-day daylight journey from Jasper, in the heart of the Canadian Rockies, to Prince Rupert, on the Pacific Coast, tugs at me (888-VIA-RAIL; www.viarail.ca ).