by Jay Brunhouse

Eurail was created in 1959 when the post-World War II mass-tourism market was in its early stages. As more and more overseas visitors flocked to Europe, Europe’s core railroad companies saw an opportunity to expand their markets.

By offering foreigners a single, first-class, consecutive-day railpass that would allow travel on the most popular national rail systems of Europe, they could make train travel much easier and eliminate the need for foreigners to...

Take one glance at the new timetable from Paris’ Gare de l’Est and you see that frequent 199-mph TGV Est trains reach Reims in 45 minutes, Strasbourg in two hours 20 minutes, Nancy in one hour 30 minutes, Metz in one hour 25 minutes and Luxembourg in two hours five minutes. The TGVs have opened for visitors the whole of northeastern France — the regions of Alsace, Lorraine and Champagne-Ardennes.

For a bonus, three to four daily TGVs from Charles de Gaulle airport train station take...

by Jay Brunhouse

Your new Premium Glacier Express train smartly bends within inches of sheer rock faces that Swiss laborers carefully hewed to allow its safe passage.

With the introduction in 2007 of new “Premium” panoramic carriages, Glacier Express, the most famous panoramic train in Europe and long an ITN readers’ favorite, increased the white-and-red train’s magnetism and pleasure in 2007.

St. Moritz (5,822 feet) and Zermatt (5,261 feet) surmount each end of...