Train Window Views

[Bohemian]

What is the best or worse view you've seen from a train carriage window and on what stretch of line was it on?

I always have music playing when I'm travelling by train. If anyone has seen the 'Star Guitar' video on YouTube by the 'Chemical Brothers', you'll know exactly what I mean about trains and inspirational views.

 

[Matt Taylor]

This is one of my favourite 'moments'

http://matthew-taylor.fotopic.net/p52846497.html


But for all time favourites I did enjoy the Cairns to Kuranda line in Australia, in the UK I liked the Lochalsh line and the Dore-Stockport stretch.

 

[Bohemian]

This is one of my favourite 'moments'.

http://matthew-taylor.fotopic.net/p52846497.html

That is one brilliant photograph.

 

[moonrakerz]

Sunset over Castle Cary Aug 2009. Taken through the open vestibule window of an HST.
HAD to get up out of my seat for this one ! Everyone was taking photographs with their phones - but it was much more spectacular without the tinted glass in the way.

 

[90019]

I do like this one taken on the Kyle Line. (I was using B&W film at the time)

 

[Hydro]

Glenfinnan viaduct

 

[ObservationCar]

I do like this one taken on the Kyle Line. (I was using B&W film at the time)

A nice summers day in Scotland! it looks miserable, sorry moody!! Taken at Stromeferry looking at the hill beyond the villiage of Lochcarron, can't remember the name of it, but it looks like a mans head or face! It's a popular walking route on the way to Torridon. Good shot though!

 

[blackfive460]

Half way across the Cob on the Ffestiniog Railway.

 

[northwichcat]

Worst view has to be the view of a pillar instead of a window on a Pendolino for 2 hours, following that it would be when a TPE service got stopped at a red signal near Middlesbrough just by a car scrap yard.

 

[wintonian]

I do like this one taken on the Kyle Line. (I was using B&W film at the time)

Havn't got any pics but I would say most of the Kyle of Lochalsh Line (it needs a proper name)

Worst; being stuck in Southampton tunnel for any length of time.

 

[At_traction]

(Among the) bests: Durham Cathedral and Wear river gorge (northbound ECML stretch ) and Rhine river valley, Köln nach Remagen (und Ahrbrück). Zum befehl, herr kapitänleutnant!

Worst "view": standing in the Mk3 vestibule at half-open window at 125 and getting whacked in the face by the air pressure of another 125 mph traveller coming in the opposite direction. Not once but twice.

 

[EltonRoad]

Loch Treig, between Corrour and Tulloch, West Highland Line. Taken from the train.

 

[wintonian]

Ohh nice, can I pinch that for my desktop?

 

[GNER 373]

Holy Island in Northumberland from ECML and coastline coming Northbound into Berwick! Fantastic! Also Durham Viaduct with views of the Cathedral (At Dusk in the Summer is amazing!) There's also a special part of the ECML coming past Tyne Yard where I used to stand as a boy and watch Trains go by which I always make a point of seeing as I pass it!

 

[MikeWh]

My favourite view has to be the time I rode on the Settle-Carlisle just after it had been saved. At one point we were travelling quite high up on the side of a valley and I looked down on a small plane flying over the valley. Magical.

 

[Failed Unit]

Worse views are the channel tunnel, or the pendo or eurostar if you are unlucky enough to get the no-view seats.

Best. ECML newcastle - Edinburgh.
WCML Lancaster - Edinburgh (in late Autumn or snow)
Any line out of Inverness.

 

[Mojo]

Worst is on the Pic line between Arnos Grove and Barons Court. So boring.

 

[Dai.]

I like all the views I've seen. I hate going on trains at nights simply because I can't see out of the windows. I terrified myself once because it was dark when I was on a train and I looked out the window and saw someone staring back at me (I didn't realise it was me!).

 

[bnm]

Not best or worst, but strangest.

Seeing a grown man in basque, knickers and suspenders standing next to the line staring at the train I was on between Bristol Parkway and Westerleigh Junction!

 

[GNER 373]

Actually the best view i have seen from a train window was in Spain. Travelling to Barcelona our train stopped between two tunnel entrances through some hills that ran adjecent to the coastline and to our right was a nudist beach!!! And not full of hairy ol' men either!!! Ola Senoritas

 

[Kernowfem]

My favourite? Simple. Going over the Tamar towards saltash. Simply beautiful.

Second favourite, Penzance bay.

Third favourite, Carbis bay on the St ives line.

 

[The Box Photter]

The view over Howe Sound near Vancouver, from the observation coach of the Whistler Mountaineer, May 2009.

 

[tinselworm]

Seeing the sunrise in over a mist covered river between bristol and bath would be it for me, I nearly cried from the beauty of it

 

[Flamingo]

Loch Treig, between Corrour and Tulloch, West Highland Line. Taken from the train.

Wow!

 

[90019]

Not best or worst, but strangest.

Seeing a grown man in basque, knickers and suspenders standing next to the line staring at the train I was on between Bristol Parkway and Westerleigh Junction!

That reminds me of one I was told about by someone I was working with last year.
She was on a train coming into Waverley from Glasgow, going past Princes Street Gardens, and those who looked over to the left saw a homeless guy squatting in the bushes, facing away from the train having a dump by the fence.

 

[DaveNewcastle]

Loch Treig, between Corrour and Tulloch, West Highland Line. Taken from the train.

Wow!

Well, could anyone disagree, that this part of the exposed barren and often bleak trek over the moors to Corrour isn't one of the most precious assets we can still enjoy from our ancestors' labours?
But that specific image of Treig is interesting:- the loch's water is used commercially, and as a consequence, that slim and pale line of stone around the edge of the loch can, at times, become a massive scab of bleached, sterile, stoney and highly unnatural terrain, simply because the water level is drained unnaturally. Its not always beautiful!

My own cherished views?
There's so many, but from my regular journeys I must include the, almost continuous, running commentary I could offer (to anyone bored enough to listen!) of the ECML between Inverness and York (and with not many breaks in commentary between there and Brighton either!). Specifically I cherish the various approaches to Glasgow, to Bristol and to London Bridge, but, if I could take issue with kernowfem, my preferred view of the Tamar Bridge is from the roadway, as it is with my avatar the Forth Bridge. I often enjoy watching the traffic on those bridges over a relaxed breakfast from a skewed angle!

 

[O L Leigh]

I once saw a young lady standing in a full-height "picture" window getting ready for a night out. She was wearing nothing but a towel.






































Mind you, she was wearing it on her head.

O L Leigh

 

[Soft Mick]

Best view for me is looking down Mallerstang, heading south on the S and C.
Worst view has to be approaching Euston. London is a dump!

 

[Greenback]

Worst view has to be the view of a pillar instead of a window on a Pendolino for 2 hours, following that it would be when a TPE service got stopped at a red signal near Middlesbrough just by a car scrap yard.

I don't agree...

Worse views are the channel tunnel, or the pendo or eurostar if you are unlucky enough to get the no-view seats.

In one of those seats recently, and I have to say it was worse than a Pendolino, as most of the views from London are of tunnels and walls in any case!

I like all the views I've seen. I hate going on trains at nights simply because I can't see out of the windows.

Well done Dai, another one of us who likes to look out! Yet don;t we keep getting told that window views aren't very important to the average passenger?

 

[At_traction]

Mind you, she was wearing it on her head.

Winner!

Worst view has to be approaching Euston. London is a dump!

I was indeed about to give as worst the view of ground-level approaches to London terminals (at elevation, there's at least generous glimpses of skyline) and urban railway cuttings. Not even a brutalist-modernist like me can fully appreciate the brick/concrete grit facing the track, throw-ups (ie. graffiti), equipment/conduit jumble and garbage...