NEW ENGLAND IN THE FALL THE OLD PATAGONIAN EXPRESS

Arriving in Boston, the escorted 10-day tour begins with three nights on Cape Cod that include a ferry excursion to Martha’s Vineyard. Amtrak – this year celebrating its 50th anniversary – is taken to reach Portland, Maine, and a coach through the White Mountains to Conway for rides on the world’s first rack railway, up Mount Washington, and the Conway Scenic Railroad to appreciate New England’s nature at its best in the vivid golds and yellows of autumn. The final two nights are spent in Boston with a guided tour of the main sights in the city founded in 1630 by Puritan settlers from the Lincolnshire town.

From £2,495 including flights.

Great Rail Journeys (01904 521936; greatrail.com)

BIG IN BANGKOK

Wave goodbye to Bangkok’s fin de siècle Hua Lamphong Station. Because later this year, the ultra-modern Bang Sue Grand Station opens as a nexus for every high-speed and sleeper service in Thailand. With 26 platforms, the largest rail hub in South East Asia is a serious undertaking. From here, travellers can hop on new Chinese-built first class sleeper cars for Chiang Mai, which costs £40 for the 13 hour voyage north. Equally fun is a four-hour rattle through jungle (both urban and verdant) to the former royal resort of Hua Hin. Disembark at the resort’s Thai temple railway station. Hua Hin’s highlight is Mrigadayavan Palace, which has 23 staircases and a private seashore.

£10 (railway.co.th).

DAR ES SALAAM TO LAKE

TANGANYIKA

A 36-hour adventure of a lifetime for £25. Tanzania’s Central Line is a far cry from Epping to West Ruislip. Instead it weaves through East Africa on tracks first laid by German colonists over a century ago. Purchase chicken and rice and Safari lager from the bar car. Or grab cold drinks from stretch-your-legs towns en route. The railhead port city of Kigoma was also German built. Stay for Mark Rothko sunsets over Lake Tanganyika. Or for a final adventure board the MV Liemba, launched in 1915 as the Graf von Goetzen and currently the world’s oldest passenger ferry, which putters down the lake to Zambia once a week.

Purchase tickets from Dar station for £25.

es Salaam

Best known as the railway that gave Paul Theroux the title to his South American rail odyssey, The Old Patagonian Express, the 251-mile line between Esquel and Ingeniero Jacobacci traverses majestic landscapes so remote that Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid holed up there when fleeing Pinkerton agents. This 14-day tour entails seven days of special steam-hauled charters and visits over the whole line, flanked by time in Argentina’s vibrant and pulsating capital Buenos Aires and charter trains over the line through the “Lakes District” between San Carlos de Bariloche and Ingeniero Jacobacci. In Buenos Aires visits are arranged to museums and the railway station “cathedrals of steam” built with Derbyshire ironwork.

From £5,760, including flights, Nov 5–18: PTG (01235 227288; ptg.co.uk)

MAGICAL MOROCCO

The 14-day tour using trains between cities begins with three nights in Marrakech and a day tour to the 18th-century fortified town of Essaouira. The three nights at a riad in Fez, where the medina is a World Heritage Site with a university founded in 859, includes a day visit to Taza. Three nights on the coast at capital Rabat allows time to explore the historic citadel and medina, and take the new tram to Salé for its unusual square minaret. A two-night stay in Tangier includes a morning tour