The best train journeys in Sri Lanka – and how to book them

13.12.2024 - 23:33 / lonelyplanet.com

Dec 13, 2024 • 8 min read

There are train rides, and then there are Sri Lankan train rides. The teardrop island in the Indian Ocean may be small, but it packs in some of the world’s most thrilling rail journeys.

You could find yourself rattling past suburbs with a fellow commuter dozing on your shoulder, or perhaps weaving in and out of emerald-green tea gardens and thickets of tropical rainforest while tucking into a packed-to-go meal of curry and rice – and sometimes both in the same trip.

The steam trains that once transported tea and spices along these weaving rail lines have mostly vanished, but the colorful diesel locos that replaced them offer the same evocative effect as they transect the Sri Lankan landscape.

If you’re a lover of travel by locomotive, consider booking passage on one of these four epic train journeys around Sri Lanka.

The best train ride in Sri Lanka

Colombo Fort – Kandy; approx. 80 miles/125km

The one rail journey that features on almost every Sri Lankan itinerary, the three-hour trip from Colombo to Kandy will whisk you away from the big-city sprawl to the genteel greenery of Sri Lanka’s spiritual capital. Some of the services on this line continue onto Badulla (see below), although it’s worth breaking the journey and exploring Kandy, home to the legendary Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic, enshrining what’s claimed to be a genuine tooth of Buddha.

On the way there, you’ll rattle past rolling hills, paddy fields, lush stands of tropical forest, palm trees waving like giant hands and miniature village train stations with tin roofs and station attendants standing at attention in immaculate uniforms. You’ll also feel the air cool as you leave the baking coastal plain for the more pleasant climate of the hills.

The Colombo-to-Kandy line was the first major route established by the newly formed Ceylon Government Railway in the 1860s, slicing through the forested hills inland from the capital to bring tea and coffee down to the coast to further the economic ambitions of the British Empire. Today, travelers ride in the opposite direction, on a journey that offers by far the most atmospheric and enjoyable way to reach the Hill Country from Colombo.

Best for spectacular views

Kandy – Badulla; approx. 100 miles/165km

The trip from Colombo to Kandy is just a warm-up for Sri Lanka’s most beautiful train ride: the British-era Main Line, built as a conduit for Sri Lanka’s most famous export: tea.

The journey from Kandy to Badulla takes seven to eight hours and carves through Sri Lanka’s tea country, passing swirling, curling plantations that appear hollowed into the hilly green landscape like the enormous fingerprints of a giant. Tidy fringes of lemongrass and canna bushes provide an ornamental