Royal Gorge Route Railroad: Is the Famous Train Ride Worth It?

Royal Gorge Route Railroad

The setup is legitimately impressive. The Royal Gorge Route Railroad runs along the Arkansas River through a granite canyon with walls that climb 1,200 feet above you. At some point the Royal Gorge Bridge passes overhead, and that moment — looking straight up at a suspension bridge from the bottom of a canyon — is one of those things that's hard to replicate. Whatever I thought I knew about what it would look like, the actual scale of the canyon was bigger.

That said, there are real decisions to make before you book, and the ticket page doesn't make them easy.

The base cost gets you on the train. What you pay beyond that depends on which car you choose, whether you add a dinner package, and whether you're booking online or in person — in-person booking adds fees that aren't always obvious upfront. The Twilight departure is what we did, which sounds romantic until the sun actually sets and things take a turn I was not prepared for.

More on that in a second.

What to Know Before You Pick a Car

The open-air cars are where most people want to be, and the views are real — no window between you and the canyon walls, full sky overhead, wind in your face. The downside is that open-air cars on a moving train are loud. Like, have-a-conversation-by-yelling loud. If you're going with someone you want to actually talk to, or if you have kids who get overwhelmed by sustained noise, that's worth factoring in.

The enclosed cars are quieter and still have good views through large windows. You're not getting the same raw experience, but you're also not arriving at dinner partially deaf. For the Twilight run specifically, the temperature drop after sunset is significant. Colorado evenings in canyon country get cold faster than you expect, and an open car at night with river wind is a different situation than an open car on a warm afternoon.

The Dinner Package

We added the dinner package, which pushed the total into the $140 range. The food is fine — not a reason to go, but not embarrassing either. It's train food served on a moving train, which puts certain limits on what's possible. If you're primarily a food person, I wouldn't plan the experience around the meal. The value of adding it is more about having something to do during the longer stretches of the ride and not having to figure out dinner in Cañon City afterward.

The ride itself is roughly two hours round trip, and there are portions where the canyon is breathtaking and portions where you're just rolling through scrubland waiting for the next dramatic section. Having food in front of you during the quieter parts helps.

The Twilight Train and the Laser Light Show

Here's the thing I genuinely did not see coming. The Twilight departure sounds like a peaceful, scenery-focused evening experience. And for the first portion, it is — the canyon at dusk is beautiful, the light goes golden, the shadows on the granite walls do their thing.

Then the sun goes down, it gets dark, and someone turns on a laser light show.

I don't know whose idea this was, but at some point the Royal Gorge Route Railroad decided that what a canyon needs after dark is a DJ-style light display projected into the rock walls. If you're in your twenties and the right amount of drinks in, this might actually be fun. If you were there for the geology, it is jarring. My wife thought it was funny. I was a little baffled. It did not ruin the trip, but I want you to know it exists so you can decide if that's your thing before you spend $140 finding out.

The daytime departures skip this. If pure scenery is the goal, a daytime run probably delivers that more consistently.

Getting There and Booking

Cañon City is about two hours from Denver — straightforward drive down I-25 and then west. It's not a spontaneous Tuesday night thing, but it fits easily into a day trip if you time the departure right. The town itself is small, and there are limited options if you arrive early and need to kill time, so plan accordingly.

Book online rather than at the station if you can. The in-person booking fees add up and you lose some ticket flexibility. The website isn't the cleanest user experience, but the car selections and pricing tiers are all there — just read the descriptions carefully before you commit to a package.

If you want the open-air experience on the Twilight run, bring a real layer. Not a light jacket — an actual warm layer. The river amplifies the cold and there's no shelter once you're moving.

So Was It Worth $140?

Mostly, yes — but with conditions. The canyon is genuinely impressive in a way that photos don't fully communicate, and there's something about experiencing it from a slow-moving train at river level that you can't replicate from a car or hiking trail. The Royal Gorge Bridge moment alone is pretty striking.

The value depends entirely on what you're expecting. If you go in thinking it's a scenic ride through dramatic landscape with decent train food and a somewhat festive Twilight ending, you'll probably leave satisfied. If you go in expecting a quiet, immersive nature experience at every moment, some parts will disappoint you.

For a once-every-few-years Colorado day trip, it earns its spot on the list. I'd do it again — probably on a daytime departure next time.