The Kandy to Ella train isn't running the full route in 2026 — Cyclone Ditwah damaged the line. Here's exactly what's open, how to still ride the scenic stretch, and when the rest reopens.
The Kandy to Ella train is not running the full route in 2026. Cyclone Ditwah (November 2025) caused over 150 landslides and washouts on the upcountry line, and the Kandy-to-Nanu Oya section is still closed for repair — full reopening isn't expected before the end of 2026, possibly early 2027. The good news: the most scenic third of the journey, Nanu Oya (or the smaller Ambewela station) through to Ella, reopened in mid-2026 and is running close to its normal schedule. You reach the train by road from Kandy, then ride the working stretch.
The Kandy to Ella train is one of the most recommended experiences in Sri Lanka, and right now, in 2026, it doesn’t run the way almost every guide to it describes. Cyclone Ditwah tore through the central highlands in November 2025, and the damage to the upcountry railway was serious enough that part of the line is still closed. If you’re planning a trip and building your itinerary around “the scenic train from Kandy,” this is the page to read before you book anything else.
Cyclone Ditwah made landfall in late November 2025 and hit Sri Lanka’s central highlands hard. The upcountry railway — the same line that carries the Kandy-Ella train through the hill country — took the worst of it: well over 150 landslides and washouts along the route, with the most severe damage concentrated between Rambukkana and Kadugannawa, a steep, geologically unstable stretch near the Kandy end of the line.
Sri Lanka Railways closed the affected sections and began a phased repair, prioritizing the parts of the line that were fastest to fix and reopening them as work finished rather than waiting for the entire route to be ready at once. That phased approach is exactly why the current situation is confusing if you’re reading older content: different sections came back online months apart, and a guide written in, say, March 2026 was accurate for March and wrong by June.
As of September 2026, here’s the current breakdown:
The Nanu Oya to Ella (via Ambewela and Badulla) section is running, having reopened in stages between June and July 2026. This is the most scenic third of the original Kandy-Ella journey — the descent through tea estates, past Ambewela’s cool highland scenery, and down into Ella’s hill-country bowl. Trains are running close to their normal schedule on this stretch, including the Podi Menike service.
The Kandy to Nanu Oya section remains closed. This is the part of the line that runs through Rambukkana, Kadugannawa, and up into the highlands — and it’s also where the worst of the cyclone damage happened. As of the most recent government update, a handful of critical repair sites in this stretch are still unfinished, and Sri Lanka’s Transport Ministry has targeted full restoration by the end of 2026, with some estimates pushing into early 2027. Repair timelines on infrastructure like this shift, so treat “end of 2026” as a target, not a guarantee.
Practically, this means: you cannot currently board the scenic train in Kandy and ride it all the way to Ella. You can get yourself to Nanu Oya or the smaller Ambewela station by road, and ride the working, more scenic half of the journey from there.
Since the Kandy end of the line isn’t running, you’ll need to cover that leg by road first:
Once you’re at Nanu Oya or Ambewela, the booking process for the working stretch is the same as it always was:
Ticket prices on this line have historically run roughly 300-800 LKR for second and third class reserved seating, with first class considerably higher. Prices and the exact departure schedule shift as services normalize post-cyclone, so treat any specific number — including ones in this guide — as a starting estimate and confirm on eRail.lk close to your travel dates.
On the Nanu Oya/Ambewela-to-Ella direction, the right-hand side of the carriage facing forward generally gets the better run of tea-estate views, though the line curves enough through the hills that neither side is ever a bad seat. If you’re specifically chasing the famous doorway photo — someone leaning out of an open carriage door with tea country behind them — that’s a second-class thing, not first class, and it means standing near the door rather than staying in your assigned seat for that stretch.
If your dates don’t line up with the working section’s schedule, or the idea of a road-then-rail combination doesn’t appeal, a private driver can cover Kandy to Ella entirely by road in about 4-5 hours. It’s faster than the full train journey ever was, and the route still climbs through genuine hill country — you lose the bridges, tunnels and the specific romance of rail travel, not the scenery entirely. For most of our own itinerary routes, this is the fallback we point to when the train doesn’t fit the days available; see our 10-day itinerary for how that trade plays out in a full route.
Sri Lanka’s Transport Ministry has targeted the end of 2026 for full restoration of the remaining sites between Rambukkana and Kadugannawa, with some reporting suggesting early 2027 is more realistic given how technically difficult that stretch is to repair — it cuts through some of the most landslide-prone hillside on the entire network. We’ll update this page as the remaining sections come back online rather than let it go stale the way most existing coverage of this route already has.
Most of what's published about this route right now is one of two things: pre-cyclone content that never got updated, or a scattered string of forum posts and short blog updates that go stale within weeks. We're publishing the current status with our sources dated, and we'll update this page as the remaining repair work finishes — not leave it as a snapshot from whenever it was first written.
