Alaska.com: Alaska's Travel Website

The Alaska Railroad was once the sole means of getting to Denali National Park. Now there are more and faster options, but the romance of the rails is still there.

Between the 1920s and the 1950s, the railroad carried sightseers to the park. Vehicles that were to be driven on the park's road were ferried to the park on flatcars.

The Denali Star, which links the park with Anchorage and Fairbanks, carries hundreds of passengers to and from Denali north and south each day. Although the line provides the actual transportation, it's also a destination in itself. A speed of about 30 mph gives passengers in the regular and dome cars plenty of time to watch as the city becomes forest. Moose, bears and eagles -- and sometimes caribou -- can been seen from the train as trundles along and across mighty rivers such as the Knik, Matanuska, Susitna, Chulitna and Nenana.

For just about the entire route, the train passes through gold-prospecting country. The first miners arrived a century ago. Some small operations are still worked back in the hills.

North of the park, the Denali Star edges along the Nenana as it makes its way out of the Alaska Range. Before the train reaches the coal-mining town of Healy, it will slip through tunnels and give passengers on the river side of the tracks a white-knuckle view of the silty river far below.

Daily service for Anchorage, Denali and Fairbanks is offered between mid-May and mid-September. (During the winter, weekend service is available as a small train motors from Anchorage to Fairbanks and back.)

Souvenirs and casual dining are available on the train.