The Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad launched the Ski Train in 1940. Ever since, it has towed snow lovers from Union Station to Winter Park.

After Philip Anschutz bought the D&RGW in 1988, he sold the old 1915 passenger coaches to the Napa Valley Wine Train and replaced them with the sleek, stainless-steel cars in service today.

To revisit the old ski train in Napa, I checked out the Wine Train and found that it's on the Amtrak line from Denver to Oakland. This is also the route of GrandLuxe Rail's Rockies, Sierras & Napa Valley train, where I served last month as the Smithsonian Institution's study leader. GrandLuxe operated as the American Orient Express until last year, when Evergreen railroad magnate Thomas G. Rader bought and renamed the train.

We were greeted for the trip at Union Station by a reception line of uniformed employees (one for each two passengers) who pamper you with coffee and pastry wake- up calls, then tuck you in at night with chocolates. We rolled past Coors Field, said a prayer for the Rockies and began climbing the Front Range to the Moffat Tunnel, snaking ever upward along various mountain streams.

On the Western Slope, the train slithers through spectacular Byers, Gore and Glenwood canyons, whose awesome overhead scenery inspired creation of the glass-domed observation car.

In Utah, we detrained for a tour through Utah's Canyonlands and Arches national parks, then again at Salt Lake City for a tour of the City of the Saints and Park City. On the Nevada side of Lake Tahoe, our boat cruise was canceled by high winds and what looked like Pacific surf.

The next morning, we woke up speeding through rolling hills of grapes. Atop each plant, shiny tinsel flashed in the sun to scare away the wine birds. Alas, we had no such warning that night to stop us wine birds from closing down the piano-bar car.

With the exception of these vineyards, mountain valleys and desert solitudes, much of the scenery you see from a train is the unlovely guts of America - backsides of warehouses, strip malls, oil refineries and immense railyards of dead, dying and cannibalized rolling stock. Boxcar graffiti. Junkyards. Hobovilles. Rusting automobiles.

In Napa, Lori, our lounge-car attendant, showed us the hobo cats from the Copper Canyon Dome Car. Right there by the wine train, a tribe of feral cats occupy an abandoned rusting red Cotton Belt boxcar.

"Those hobo cats have been here at least 10 years," Lori told us. "I'm tempted to adopt one, but this train's crew quarters are already pretty tight."

"We are glad to have those cats here - they control the rodents that fancy our cheeses and seafood," said Wine Train executive chef Kelly MacDonald. "We feed and lubricate 500 to 600 people a day - and no rats or mice."

The drab old ski-train cars have been elegantly upgraded for the Wine Train's year-round gourmet lunch and dinner excursions, now wearing bright red, gold and green colors. From the dome car and the rear platform, you get an especially good look at some of the great California vineyards, such as Clos du Val and Robert Mondavi.

The Napa Valley train dates to 1864, when it began serving the gold rush. Nowadays the gold is in the grapes, which inspired Vincent DeDomenico, of Rice-a-Roni fame, to launch the Napa Valley Wine Train in 1987. DeDomenico died last month at the age of 92.

After the jolly three-hour, 37-mile round trip, we returned to our GrandLuxe compartments for a nap, dreaming of endless vineyards and endless railroad extravaganzas.

Tom Noel welcomes comments at Coloradowebsites.com/ dr-colorado.