Virginia Scenic Railway — Attraction in Staunton

I love trains. We traveled trains in France & Belgium, the NY & NJ lines, Durango Silverton, many times, Amtrak across & down from NESW, as well as "novelty" trains. Christmas, our daughters bought us Dome Dining Tickets for the Virginia Scenic Railway, we were over the moon excited. May, I started planning our train ride along to go along w/ our visit to the VA Clay Festival in Stanardsville, the 19-22 of September, 2025. July we locked in the train, & once done, we committed to everything. BnB, reserved & paid for. Train, reserved and paid for. Clay Festival, yep. Imagine our surprise when two weeks before our appointed time, the Virginia Scenic Railway called & informed us that they cancelled our tickets. --Doing anything w/ this company is nearly impossible! No real phone contact or way to talk with them. No office. Nothing. Making a reservation is tantamount losing your mind. They just left a message & no phone number, & cancelled. When after searching & several calls I was able to reach someone, she was short & bordering on extremely rude, basically giving few options. Just change the date or use the gift certificate some other time!? When I expressed that changing the weekend would leave us paying for the BnB & not going, the response was... "Sorry, I can't help you with that..."- Asking for a refund was met with a flat out, "Nope. We don't do that." So, we wound up downgrading our plans from the upper to lower Dome Car, & scheduled the train for a day earlier, which would mean we had to change plans & hope things would work. I felt pressured to take the offered lower section of the Dome car. Not what we wanted or paid for, but... About 10 minutes later, the email arrived... Coach. Not the downstairs of the Dom car, but coach. Those two tickets were less than half of what they were holding in gift funds that the kids gave us. Of course the email had no phone number, no contact information whatsoever, & now I am beside myself. I scramble, trying to call them back again, and about 20 minutes later I got through to I believe was the same person, although she never did tell me who she was. I said to her, I believe I just spoke with you... You rescheduled my upper dome car ticket for a lower down car ticket, but you changed it to a coach ticket? Her attitude again was clipped & rude. She groaned as if I was causing her way too much trouble & said "so what do you want me to do?" I said I'd like the downstairs Dome ticket. "Fine..." she responded, "I'll go ahead & send that ticket to you and cancel the other one." Let me tell you... I had zero confidence that we would actually get on the train at all, but as it turns out, right now as I am writing this, we are on the train. So now here is my review of the train ride. Don't. Waste. Your money. Virginia Scenic Railway, is anything but scenic. Unless you think, looking at Kazu tree bushes, trash along the sides of the railroad line, a tunnel and a few rock is scenic, this is a waste. I feel guilty that my children paid $250 for this. They served food to most people, we did not get food. We did get a bag of chips and a chocolate chip cookie, but no meal. Why, you might ask? Because obviously they're not willing to make any accommodations for someone with alpha gal. So I let everyone else who offered a meal we received a glass of water, a bag of chips, and a chocolate chip cookie. When I asked about the balance of our gift card, I was told I have no idea. End of story. Let me also mention that the car we were in was so cold, that jokes went around about the hanging sides of beef, and my feelings that the train was actually some sort of cryogenic experiment! My poor husband went on the train feeling great, came off with a full blown asthma attack spurred on by his shivering for the better part of 3.5 hours! Seriously, think long & hard before you spend your money & time on this outing. There are better trains you can ride throughout the USA. Oh, & I just got told, that I can't use the balance of my gift card... So they just keep the $90?...

I'll go on a long discourse about some of the things I've seen people complain about here, then into details about my experience. However, before that the short of it is - excellent service, excellent entertainment, excellent atmosphere (and no tips I take to mean fair pay instead!).

Now - 1. Views. A-You know the railroad only owns the track and x feet from it right? Private property owners not maintaining their property (or trees) is not in the railroad's control. Just like if you were complaining about the weather. Kind of like driving the parkway and complaining you have no views because nature grew. B- You also know railroads transport people and freight - so they have to go by and through towns and populated areas. You'll see business that need to load stuff on cars, manufacturing etc. If you've ridden Amtrak in VA it is basically the same views as that.

Distance/covering same ground. I've posted some a handy map of tracks around Staunton. As you know, trains can't make sharp turns, and unlike interstates usually only have one direction to change tracks.

Let's take a Staunton/Waynesboro/Elkton/Harrisonburg/Staunton route. The problems with this route include - 3 different track owners - with which you'd have to come to an agreement to use their tracks. Also - guess what? Passenger trains - Amtrak included -yield to freight trains. Also, the Waynesboro area where you'd change tracks looks pretty busy, it could be hard getting through there.

Now let's say you work that out, now at Elkton you've got to pull up, switch tracks, and then start pushing the cars unless there is someway to get the engine back to the front when changing direction. Going from there back to Staunton otherwise appears possible. But between $$ needed to negotiate between 3 tracks, scheduling, having to yield to freight, and possible trouble switching tracks and directions, I think you see the trouble establishing a 'circular' route.

That's probably why most scenic railroads are either point to point or small enough to have a circular ride on one property. Simplicity and cost/time savings.

Considering this railroad routes are on Amtrak, there is only 1 possible route they could take staying on Amtrak, and there are probably other reason why they can't do a loop. Also it would probably extend the ride to 6+ hours. I imagine most people want a shorter trip than that.

Now that's out of the way....

We went on the Murder Mystery ride and was pleasantly surprised by the seating/dining arrangements. Very nice set up. We got going and between enjoying the ride and the actors, it was very entertaining. There is a portion where you can interact with the characters to get more information to determine who has done it. Being our first time and introverted we didn't engage much, but still enjoyed it and the conclusion.

They served dinner & desert both of which were tasty. Shout out to Kelsey our server & Elizabeth our... car manager I think? They were great, polite, personable, and provided excellent service.

I will also say I greatly appreciate that the ticket was "all inclusive" meaning 1) there was no tip pressure and 2) that they are actually getting paid a decent wage so that they don't need to rely on tips. ...

I treated my mom to the Alleghany Special yesterday for her birthday and I have to say overall we were both really disappointed. The staff was very nice and the train was nice and clean, but outside of that I can’t find any highlights to really compliment. I honestly can’t believe so many ppl gave this experience a 4 or 5 star rating. The marketing and promotion for this experience is misleading in my opinion. If you think you’re going to see a lot of beautiful greenery and wonderful things to look at think again lol. The brochure and website mentions a destination bound to the George Washington and Jefferson forests, but I’m still not sure about that for all I saw was one nice farm and few farm animals. The route was not very scenic at all and due to the numerous trees along the track you can’t even really see what is being highlighted during the narration. For the majority of the trip you’re just staring at a variety of trees, power lines and old homes with junk cars sitting around. The route literally just went straight for a hour and a half and came back the exact same way narrating the same things which I didn’t understand the purpose of. The food…so apparently they use “caterer services” and the options are slim (you pre-select your dining options online when booking). The food was horrible minus the desert. I asked for a chicken sandwich. When my food came the source of chicken was so scare it appeared as if I just had a bun with dressings and no meat. It wasn’t your traditional chicken sandwich, but processed deli like meat. The potato salad wasn’t good either so needless to say I didn’t eat any of my food which is unfortunate since I was hungry and it was included in the price of the ticket. Food should be optional in my opinion. My mom also had a hair submerged in her food that was at least 10 inches long and had to ask for a remake (she didn’t enjoy the food either minus the desert). The staff handling the food did not wear hair nets which all staff members handling food should be wearing. They said Lil Gus’ made the food. The wine selection wasn’t the best especially if you’re a wine enthusiast that likes wine more on the sweet side. They also charged just shy of $20 for one glass. I could purchase a bottle of desert wine for that price. Overall there was no real excitement here and the “experience” wasn't worth $135pp after taxes. I would definitely save my time and money for a scenic ride in a area that actually has a plethora of scenic views to see and take in. I’ve been to Shenandoah Valley along with National Parks many times and this route isn’t giving scenic on that level, I’m sorry. It’s too far out and too obstructed and the route doesn’t take you anywhere close to the forests...