The plan was simple: Take the train to the ski slopes.

Why? Trains are romantic. Trains are relatively climate-friendly. And I had recently spent an hour and a half on a perfect powder day sitting in traffic, trying to drive up Little Cottonwood Canyon to Snowbird, near Salt Lake City.

So I decided to swear off car travel for a weekend of skiing and snowboarding via the rails.

Two developments in Denver made the scheme possible: In 2016 the city opened the A line train, which runs from Denver International Airport to Union Station, an exquisitely restored Beaux-Arts terminal and the city’s main transit hub, in 37 minutes.

The following year, Amtrak launched its service on the Winter Park Express, a snow-season train that leaves Union Station each weekend and delivers passengers to the base of the Winter Park Resort, a burly, 3,000-acre ski mountain about 70 miles outside Denver.

Getting to the mountain, and the other resorts west of Denver by car is increasingly an issue. On a snowy weekend, traffic on I-70, the main route to the mountains, can turn an hour-and-a-half drive to Winter Park into a four-hour ordeal. Perhaps not surprisingly, many of the Winter Park Express’s trips sell out, with 400 passengers choosing to ride the rails each trip.