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North Dakota Fall Foliage Train Rides

Published: September 11, 2025

By: Adam Burns

North Dakota’s fall doesn’t shout; it glows. Cottonwoods and willows along river bottoms turn brassy gold, aspen groves flash lemon-yellow in the Turtle Mountains, and shelterbelts stitch amber lines across the prairie. Couple that with a sky that seems to go on forever and you’ve got a quietly spectacular season.

If you’re picturing a classic New England-style foliage excursion train, though, here’s the reality: as of 2025, North Dakota doesn’t run dedicated fall foliage tourist trains. What the state does offer is an underrated, thoroughly relaxing way to take in the season’s color and harvest scenes: Amtrak’s Empire Builder across the prairie.

One long-distance train, a lot of autumn: that’s the simple formula. The Empire Builder is a daily Chicago–Seattle/Portland train that traverses North Dakota on BNSF rails, serving Fargo, Grand Forks, Devils Lake, Rugby, Minot, and Williston. It’s not a themed fall trip, but in late September and early October it becomes a moving picture window on the state’s best seasonal hues—golden riverbottom forests, windbreaks ablaze, sloughs ringed with reeds, grain fields in their last act, and vast wetlands alive with migrating waterfowl.

For the most daylight over North Dakota, ride westbound. Schedules vary, but typically the westbound train crosses eastern and central North Dakota in the morning and reaches the western edge around midday. Eastbound tends to hit much of the state after sunset. Check current times before you book, but if your goal is scenery, choose the westbound daylit run. Coach seats are roomy enough for a day’s ride, and if you upgrade to a sleeping car you’ll have meals included in the dining car, which can be a memorable way to enjoy breakfast or lunch as the prairie rolls by. The train also carries a Sightseer Lounge car with tall windows—prime real estate for photographers and leaf-peepers.

East of Grand Forks, the route parallels the Red River valley’s flatlands, where shelterbelts—those purposeful lines of trees planted as windbreaks—turn color in ribbons that cut across open fields. As you swing northwest toward Larimore and beyond, watch for groves of aspen and birch near Turtle River State Park; when autumn is on time, their leaves shimmer in the slightest breeze. The low sloughs and potholes sprinkled across the landscape are framed with cattails and willows gone copper. This is the Central Flyway; in fall you may spot skeins of geese and rafts of ducks arrowing toward Devils Lake and nearby wetlands.

Devils Lake itself is a highlight. The track threads a corridor of water and marshes where cottonwoods and willows burn yellow and orange against the blue-gray of the lake. If you’re breaking up your trip, Devils Lake makes a good stopover: rent a car to reach Grahams Island State Park for short hikes under gold-canopied trees. Continuing west through Rugby—the self-proclaimed geographic center of North America—you’ll roll into the Souris (Mouse) River valley approaching Minot. Here the land finally wrinkles, folding into coulees with stands of cottonwood in full color hugging the riverbanks. West of Minot, the train crosses the Gassman Coulee Trestle, a long steel viaduct with big prairie views; in fall, the coulee bottoms are a patchwork of yellows and straw-colored grasses that make for cinematic vistas from the lounge car.

From Minot toward Williston, the prairie tips toward the Missouri–Yellowstone country. Expect wider skies, deeper draws, and, as you near the state’s western edge, hints of the sculpted breaks that define the badlands further south. Harvest is often in full swing: combines working stubble fields, grain carts shuttling to bins, and stacks of straw punctuating the horizon. Riparian corridors flash yellow in the distance near the confluence region; on exceptionally clear days, the light can be crystalline, turning every line of cottonwoods into a painterly border. As the train bends toward Montana, the cottonwood galleries along river bottoms often peak right around late September to early October, though the exact timing depends on weather.

Because the Empire Builder runs once daily in each direction, it helps to plan your trip with some intention. A classic weekend option is to board early westbound in Fargo or Grand Forks, ride to Minot by late morning, spend the day and night there (Minot is lively in late September during Norsk Høstfest, the big Scandinavian festival), then continue west to Williston the next morning and pick up a rental car for a loop to Theodore Roosevelt National Park’s North Unit near Watford City. While that park isn’t on the train line, the North Unit is a compact, breathtaking drive with cottonwoods along the Little Missouri glowing under striped buttes—a perfect complement to your rail day. Alternatively, make Devils Lake your hub and pair a scenic lakeside drive with short rail segments in and out.

If you prefer a same-day out-and-back, you can ride westbound a couple of stops for the scenery and return eastbound by rental car or motorcoach, maximizing daylight both ways. Because the eastbound train crosses much of North Dakota at night, a round-trip purely by rail won’t show you as much fall color in both directions. When booking, ask about which stations have checked baggage service if you’re toting camera gear, and allow cushion time at your endpoints—freight railroad traffic and weather can add variability to arrival times.

A few practical tips elevate the experience. Aim for the last week of September through the first two weeks of October; riverbottom cottonwoods tend to crest then, though northern spots like the Turtle Mountains can turn a bit earlier. On a westbound daytime ride, sit on the north side of the train to keep the sun largely at your back for even-lit photographs across the prairie (the lounge car gives you 360-degree flexibility). Bring a cloth or wipes to clean your window if you’re shooting from your seat, and a polarized filter to cut glare when the sun is high. Layers are your friend—stations can be breezy—and binoculars pay off for spotting migratory birds around Devils Lake and along the Souris.

Because North Dakota doesn’t run a dedicated fall foliage excursion train, it’s worth calling out two honorable mentions for rail fans, even if they’re not rides. The Hi-Line Bridge in Valley City carries BNSF freight trains over the Sheyenne River on one of the country’s great steel trestles; the wooded river valley below turns vivid in October, and there are public vantage points for photography. Near Minot, the aforementioned Gassman Coulee Trestle serves up big skies and a ribbon of yellow in the coulee bottom when the cottonwoods peak; again, you’ll be railfanning from the ground, not riding.

If you’re set on a classic heritage fall train and don’t mind crossing a border or state line, a few regional options are within a weekend’s reach. To the northeast, Manitoba’s Prairie Dog Central Railway north of Winnipeg runs vintage-rail excursions through October. To the east, Minnesota’s North Shore Scenic Railroad in Duluth and the Lake Superior & Mississippi Railroad offer leaf-peeping runs along water and woods. To the south, the 1880 Train in South Dakota’s Black Hills shows off pine-and-aspen hillsides that pop with gold. None of these are in North Dakota, but they pair well with a broader Upper Midwest fall itinerary.

In the end, a North Dakota fall foliage train ride is less about dramatic mountainsides and more about the quiet drama of light, land, and season at work on the prairie. Settle into a wide seat, wander to the lounge, sip coffee as the morning sun warms the fields, and watch the cottonwoods glow along rivers you can trace by color alone. It’s simple, unhurried, and deeply satisfying—much like the state itself in autumn.