Napa Valley Wine Train - November 2014

I like wine. I like trains. I loved the Napa Valley Wine Train. Since 1989, the Napa Valley Wine Train has been serving lunch and dinner while gently rolling through the vineyards along Highway 29. The ride takes about 3 hours with additional time for boarding and departing and includes appetizers and wine and a three-course lunch. It just happened to be an incredibly gorgeous late Fall day with beautiful clouds and colored trees and grapevines. Weather reservations are not available.

There is a little more backstory on this trip. Growing up, my father had many train sets in the house and even a garden railway. One of his collections was a model train set with the Napa Valley Wine Train livery. The restored streamliner passenger train was often seen barreling down the track in our backyard, meandering through the citrus trees heading to destinations unknown. In the boarding area, there was the above set reminding me of why I had to take the trip!

The above video is a walkthrough of the train starting one of the lounge cars and heading through the open-air Silverado car. The train was only about half full, so these compartments were empty. Passengers are split into two groups - early and late lunch. Those with a late lunch begin their journey in the lounge car and are served a welcome glass of wine and a generous appetizer plate of antipasto and cheese. You can purchase additional wine. The selection was nothing unique, but you can choose several tasting flights to sample many different types.

Lunch is served in the dining car. Lots of china and silver with huge picture windows compliment the meal. The dishes were very nice and tasty with a surprising amount of effort put into the meal. On this trip, I had a pumpkin bisque, bacon-wrapped pork tenderloin, and creme brûlée with blueberries. They also have dinner trains, but this time of the year it would be much darker.

One nice feature is the ability to walk all over the train during the trip. Not too many people did this, which allowed me to take a nice video of the locomotives pulling the train north towards St. Helena. There are observation cars on each end of the train, so half the journey you get a view of the business end of the train. The trip starts in the City of Napa and heads north to St. Helena. There, the locomotives decouple and move to the other end of the train to pull everyone back home on a one-way track. Not the most efficient, but it is still pretty cool. They converted one of the locomotives to run on natural gas - obviously not the one smoking directly in front of the camera.

I have been down this road many times. The train passes by some of the best wineries in the world - Robert Mondavi, Opus One, Cakebread, Far Niente, BV, Beringer, etc. This was a very fun and unique way to see the valley from a different perspective. For most, doing a standard Napa Tour is enough, especially with a limo or bus. This option would be perfect if it actually featured wine from the wineries that it passes, but sadly the selection is fairly basic and lower end. There is a premium option on the train for meals in the dome car. Nevertheless, this was a trip long overdue and something I will remember for a long time. Please enjoy the rest of my pictures below.