Alaska Railroad - Talkeetna Depot — Attraction in Alaska

We rode the Alakan Railroad, Denali Star Line, from Denali National Park to Talkeetna as part of a Princess Cruise-Tour. The railroad was one of our favorite parts to the entire trip, if we could have ridden longer we would have! The views were always changing and always amazing. The bar service was great ( I had the Mosquito Bite). We did eat lunch downstairs in the dining room. The menu was obviously limited (we are on a train!) but delicious. I will be honest and say I wasn't expecting this to meet expectations. You hear people say "riding a train through Alaska is amazing". And it actually was!

One thing I did not realize prior to boarding - all of the seats on the Princess train cars are in the second story. The dining room and bathrooms are downstairs. Every passenger has a seat with tons of leg room, surrounded by windows to let in the sights.

Also in Talkeetna they load you onto buses and then drop you in town. Bascially everyone from the train swarms the town (full of shops & restaurants). There is bag storage (just for your backpack or whatever you are carrying for the day) available for $1/bag at the store next to the bus parking lot (it was a tour company of some type that runs the store). The drivers tell you about it (and I'm sure would be able to answer any questions) so it's not hard to find. We used this service and it helped SO MUCH in being able to walk around town without carrying it all with us. Again this was something I was unaware of until we were...

This train tour exceeded our expectations. We were pleasantly surprised with several short (10-20 min) stops where passengers can hop off the train to look around and take photos. Two stops along the route you had the opportunity to meet local authors & artists that live off grid. They have books and art for sale if you are interested. The tour guide offered lots of information about the history of the area and its people. We were allowed to move around the cabin and sit anywhere we wished. The conductor, Ryan Rodriguez, was very friendly and interacted with passengers. I highly recommend this scenic round-trip flagstop railroad tour. There are Alaska Railroad discount tickets (2 for 1) in travel...

We went in with no expectations. We figured this would purely be a train ride to take locals out and in, instead, the Hurricane Summer Train with Mary as our tour guide was a phenomenal experience. When we realized most of who were on the train was tourists and that Mary was interacting the whole ride we were enthused. We had a few opportunities to get off the train for photos and ooohs and awes , but was really special was hearing about the off the gridders - and even meeting a few. All in all, this was ranked in our top Alaska experience. Thanks for all you do , Alaska Railroad!

Edit we did the Hurricane Summer Tour from Talkeetna to Hurricane Gulch and back...