Now, More Travelers Can Make Tracks For Sandpoint Restored Train Offers Two-Day Trips Through Montana To Yellowstone Park

For the first time in 15 years, travelers will be able to rumble through the scenic Rocky Mountains, aboard a restored 242-passenger train.

The Montana Rockies Daylight will chug out of Sandpoint in July. It will be the first of 12 departures taking travelers to Missoula and Billings, Mont.

“There is no better way to enjoy some of the most thrilling scenery in the western U.S.,” said David Duncan, general manager of Rail Views, Ltd., which operates the seven-car train.

“We have worked on this project for four years and are enthused about the possibilities,” he said. “There is no other long-distance private tour train in the 48 states like it.”

The train, which is partly owned by Pack River Management, owners of Schweitzer Mountain Resort, will run on the Montana Rail Link line. The two-day trips will follow the Clark Fork and Yellowstone Rivers, weave over mountains and cross some incredible trestles.

A passenger train has not rolled along the route since 1979 and most of that trip was done at night. Duncan said this is a chance for “armchair adventurers” to see some beautifully remote country in comfort.

“It is a route rich in history and scenery,” he said.

Three of the train’s cars are restored domes, cars with picture windows, glasstops and table seating. The trips will cost from $400 to $900 a person and offer an overnight stay in Missoula. The train will even drop passengers to spend a few days in Yellowstone National Park.

It’s a service that will not only attract train buffs but other tourists, said Sandpoint Chamber of Commerce Executive Director, Jonathan Coe.

“Anybody who takes this trip will be in Sandpoint at the beginning or end of it. It’s a terrific opportunity for some national exposure for us,” Coe said.

“It will bring people who otherwise wouldn’t have come and experienced Sandpoint, and hopefully they will return.”

Trains have already proven to be a lucrative attraction here. An advertising campaign last year touted the 50 trains that pass through a day.

The chambers ad in “Trains” magazine netted 1,000 inquiries. Its difficult though to keep track of how many tourists show up just for the trains. But hotel owners say the railroad enthusiasts are the ones who ask for rooms with a view of the tracks instead of the lake.

“There’s truly a huge national market for this,” Coe said.

For two years, Sandpoint, Priest River and Newport, Wash., have tried to find an operator for a tour train that would run between the cities.

Coe said that quest is how the Montana Rockies Daylight train package was ultimately put together.

“Now if we can get the train to Sandpoint and Newport we would have quite a product to offer train fans,” Coe said. “It allows people to see the West from a whole different perspective.”