This historic rail corridor offers a new way to see the American West

One of the most immediate differences between rail and road travel is not just speed, but perception. Driving through the American West often compresses distance into a sequence of stops, viewpoints, trailheads, and park entrances. The landscape becomes episodic. On the train, it unfolds without interruption, cinematic. 

Long before it carried travelers, the rail line that now hosts Canyon Spirit trains, was built to move freight whilst cutting through the Rocky Mountains to transport coal, timber, and industrial goods across the American West.

“This route has a storied history,” says Paul Hammond, executive director of the Colorado Railroad Museum. “The Denver and Rio Grande were originally built in the 1870s to serve mining regions, and by the late 19th century, it connected Colorado to Salt Lake City through some of the most rugged terrain in the West.”

A new window to the American West 

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, railroads carved through this region to connect mining towns, agricultural centers, and expanding cities. The corridor linking Colorado and Utah follows sections of routes developed by the Denver & Rio Grande Western Railroad, which was engineered to move directly through mountainous terrain rather than around it as an approach that reshaped how goods moved across the West. 

The tracks were laid for efficiency, not scenery. They followed the Colorado River through narrow canyons, tunneled beneath the Continental Divide, and connected remote mining towns to a growing national economy. As National Geographic has documented in its American Nile series, the river remains the defining force behind the geology and ecosystems of the region.

For decades, this was a working landscape measured in tonnage, not views. Today, the same corridor moves at a different pace.

The expansion of the corridor depended on major engineering feats, including the completion of the Moffat Tunnel in 1928, which allowed trains to pass beneath the Continental Divide and significantly shortened travel times between Denver and the West. For passengers, however, the appeal has been different. “For passengers, it was always considered one of the most scenic rail routes in the country,” Hammond says. The now-iconic glass-domed railcar—designed to elevate views—was first developed along this corridor in the mid-20th century.

In 2025, Rocky Mountaineer announced the rebrand of its U.S. journeys as Canyon Spirit, alongside a 2026 extension connecting Denver to Salt Lake City via Glenwood Springs and Moab. What was once a corridor built for extraction is now being used for observation.

Denver to Glenwood Springs: Entering the Rockies

By the time the train reaches Glenwood Springs, the journey has already established its rhythm. travelers step off not into transit, but into place—often walking directly into a town shaped by the same rail line they’ve just followed. The town (long associated with rail travel) has evolved into a destination defined by its geothermal waters and access to surrounding wilderness. Travelers often spend time soaking in the Glenwood Hot Springs Pool, one of the largest mineral hot springs in the world, or hiking to Hanging Lake, where turquoise water pools beneath limestone cliffs were formed by mineral deposition.

Unlike overnight rail routes, Canyon Spirit is a daylight journey. Passengers travel during the day, then disembark in the evening, with luggage transferred directly to local hotels. The experience is structured less like traditional rail travel and more like a moving corridor, one that blends transportation with immersion.

On board, meals are served in-seat, with regionally inspired menus that shift as the landscape changes. Knowledgeable staff narrate sections of the journey, pointing out geological formations and historic rail features, turning the ride into a kind of mobile education.

Through canyon country: Where roads don’t go

West of Glenwood Springs, the terrain begins to open and transitions from alpine forest to desert canyon. The visual shift feels less like a change in destination and more like a progression through interconnected systems.

Forests thin into scrub, and the palette shifts—greens giving way to rust, ochre, and deep red. The train follows the Colorado River into remote stretches of canyonland, including areas near Ruby Canyon where there are no roads, no trailheads, and no visible infrastructure.

Without the interruptions of driving, the landscape unfolds continuously. Light moves across the rock faces, shadows lengthen, and the same cliffs shift in appearance over minutes. What might be a brief overlook by car becomes something closer to observation—unbroken and immersive. Even Amtrak’s California Zephyr, which traverses parts of the broader corridor, does not pass through all of these more isolated segments.

Moab: Red rock landscapes and rising pressure

By the time the train reaches Moab, the landscape has fully transitioned into the red rock formations that define much of the American Southwest. The stillness of the canyon gives way to a town in motion. Visitors moving between hotels, trailheads, and park entrances, all converge on landscapes that have become globally recognizable.

“Moab’s unique landscapes have drawn people here for thousands of years—it really is unlike anywhere else,” says Alison Harford, assistant marketing director at the Moab Office of Tourism. “Today, we’re seeing travelers stay longer and seek out experiences over quick, bucket-list visits. Train travel fits into that shift, allowing people to watch the landscape unfold and value the journey as much as the destination.” Arriving by train offers a different entry point—one that avoids long drives and reframes how visitors move through an already crowded landscape.

However, Arches National Park and Canyonlands National Park draw millions each year, bringing traffic, limited parking, and increasing pressure on fragile desert ecosystems. In response, the National Park Service has introduced timed-entry systems at Arches during peak seasons.

Salt Lake City: Extending the journey

The extension to Salt Lake City shifts the route from a destination-focused trip to a broader regional journey, making the city less of an endpoint and more of a continuation, connecting landscapes that are often experienced in isolation. Rather than ending near Moab, the train now continues into Utah’s capital, linking desert landscapes with an urban center framed by mountains and the Great Salt Lake, mirroring the shifts that define the route itself. In this expanded form, the rail line functions less as a standalone experience and more as connective infrastructure across the American West.

The transition happens gradually, connecting environments that are often experienced separately. Salt Lake City offers a different perspective where visitors can move between the saline shoreline of the Great Salt Lake and the Wasatch Mountains within a single day.

Rethinking access to the American West

Rail does not resolve the pressures facing the American West. National parks remain crowded, and gateway towns continue to expand. However, this corridor offers a different way of moving through it.

For more than a century, these tracks were used to extract, transport, and connect. Now, they are being used to observe, to slow down, and reconsider what it means to travel through a landscape that has always been in motion.

In a region defined by distance, speed has long been the priority. The resurgence of routes like Canyon Spirit suggests something else: that the future of travel here may not be about getting farther, but about seeing more clearly what has been there all along.