Commodore's Crown

Itinerary

1. New York, NY
   Day 1 | Board in Manhattan

   Settle into your private railcar and raise a 20th Century, the gin cocktail named for the train that made this route famous, as your car eases north out of Manhattan. You leave the way the 20th Century's passengers once did: unhurried, and expected.

2. Spuyten Duyvil, NY
   Day 1 | The Hudson Appears

   The train slips out of the city along the river and crosses the Harlem River Ship Canal at Spuyten Duyvil, where the Hudson opens wide and silver ahead of you. The Palisades rise along the far shore. Lunch is served as the last of the city falls away.

   Lunch

3. Croton-on-Hudson, NY
   Day 1 | The Widest Water

   Here the Hudson swells to its widest reach, more than three miles from bank to bank, and the water fills every window. Croton Point curls out into the current and sailboats trace the bay like handwriting. This was the Commodore's country, and the view has hardly changed.

4. Garrison, NY
   Day 1 | The Gates of the Highlands

   The river narrows and the mountains close in. West Point holds its bluff across the water with Storm King rising beyond, while the rails hug the east shore so tightly that the view is almost entirely river.

5. Hyde Park, NY
   Day 1 | A Vanderbilt Neighbor

   Up on the bluff above the river sits the Hyde Park estate of Frederick Vanderbilt, the Commodore's grandson and the builder of one of the Gilded Age's great houses. The family made its fortune on this river, and the river is where they chose to rest. The afternoon light is at its best here.

6. Schenectady, NY
   Day 1 | Into the Mohawk Valley

   The rails follow the Mohawk along the low road through the mountains, the gap that made the Erie Canal and, later, the railroad possible. Dinner is served as the valley reddens with evening light: farms, floodplain, and the slow glint of the canal beside the tracks.

   Dinner

7. Little Falls, NY
   Day 1 | Gorge and Lock

   As dusk settles, the train threads the narrow gorge at Little Falls, where the river, the canal, and the railroad once competed for the same ribbon of rock. Lock 17, among the highest lift locks on the Erie Canal, glows beside the line. Lamps come on in the mill town above.

8. Utica, NY
   Day 1 | Lamplight at Union Station

   Utica's Union Station, a Beaux-Arts hall from 1914, keeps its lights on for the night trains. Your steward turns down the beds as the train presses west.

   Sleep Onboard

9. Cleveland, OH
   Day 2 | First Light on Lake Erie

   Wake to a pale dawn over the lake. The train follows the Ohio shoreline toward Cleveland, where the Terminal Tower rises over the lakefront. Breakfast is served as the skyline comes into view.

   Breakfast

10. Toledo, OH
    Day 2 | The Glass City

    Toledo sits on the Maumee River, and beyond it the country turns flat, green, and generous, farm after farm laid out to the horizon.

11. Elkhart, IN
    Day 2 | Crossroads of the Midwest

    Elkhart, long known as the band instrument capital of the world, sits where the great main line meets the heart of the Midwest. Coffee is refreshed, the fields roll by, and the morning belongs to nothing but the view.

12. Indiana Dunes, IN
    Day 2 | Lake Michigan Returns

    Lake Michigan returns at last. The Indiana Dunes rise in pale sand and pine, followed by the steel country of the southern shore, furnaces and stacks glowing in the haze. Somewhere ahead, the Chicago skyline is gathering itself.

13. Chicago, IL
    Day 2 | Arrive in Chicago

    The skyline rises beyond the yards and your journey ends at Chicago Union Station, a short distance from LaSalle Street, where the 20th Century Limited once arrived to a rolled-out crimson carpet. Your steward will honor the tradition at your railcar door.