The Kandy to Ella train

Cyclone Ditwah hit in late November and December 2025 and did more damage to Sri Lanka's railways than anything in living memory — 159 landslides and 95 washouts across the network, with total national damage put at around Rs 341 billion. The hill country line, which climbs from Kandy through Hatton and Nanu Oya to Badulla, took the worst of it, because it is the line most exposed to unstable slope.

Repairs have been steady rather than fast. By early May 2026, 92 of the 97 damaged sites between Maradana and Peradeniya had been restored. What is left is the hard part. Five critical locations between Rambukkana and Kadugannawa were still outstanding in early September 2026, and the worst of them is the Peradeniya Black Bridge over the Mahaweli — Kalu Palama to everyone local — where a pier tilted seven to eight degrees in the cyclone. On 7 September 2026 the river rose and put the construction machinery under water, which is the kind of setback this line keeps having. Those few sites are the reason Kandy is still cut off from both Colombo and the hills by rail. The Transport Ministry's revised deadline for the whole Colombo–Badulla line, set after the April 2026 target was missed, is 31 December 2026.

Running: Nanu Oya to Badulla

The section from Nanu Oya — the station for Nuwara Eliya, about twenty minutes out of the town — down through Haputale, Ohiya, Bandarawela, Ella and Demodara to Badulla reopened on 20 June 2026. Sri Lanka Railways' notice of 18 June 2026 lists two trains a day in each direction, four trips in total, and it is still the current timetable as of 16 September 2026. This includes the Nine Arch Bridge at Demodara and the long run along the tea estates that most of the photographs you have seen were taken on.

Read the uphill rows right to left: train 1006 leaves Badulla at 15:00, Ella at 15:52 and reaches Nanu Oya at 18:06. All six call at Ambewela, Pattipola, Ohiya, Idalgashinna, Diyatalawa, Bandarawela and Demodara. For most travellers the 09:00 from Nanu Oya is the one — two and a half hours to Ella in daylight, and time for the Nine Arch Bridge on foot the same afternoon.

Closed: Kandy to Nanu Oya

The stretch above it, through Hatton and the high plateau, is still under repair, and Sri Lanka Railways has not published a reopening date for it. A short local service runs between Nawalapitiya and Hatton, which is no use to a traveller heading for Ella. Nothing we have seen puts a month on this section specifically — only the end-of-year deadline for the whole line — so plan on the road workaround below for any journey before 2027.

Closed: Colombo to Kandy

Colombo Fort to Rambukkana is open; Rambukkana through Kadugannawa to Kandy is not. On 5 September 2026 the Railway Department's Chief Engineer said Colombo Fort to Kandy services via Peradeniya were expected to resume next month, and on 7 September the Deputy Minister of Transport repeated October, adding that the Rambukkana–Kadugannawa rebuild was due to finish on 15 September. Both are stated intentions rather than a published timetable; the same week's reporting carried the Black Bridge flooding, and earlier deadlines on this line have slipped more than once. Until a timetable appears on railway.gov.lk, Colombo to Kandy is a road journey.

Unaffected: the coastal line

Colombo to Galle, Hikkaduwa, Weligama and Matara runs normally and always has. It is a lovely, cheap, slow ride along the sea, and if the hill country line disappoints you, this is the consolation.

Almost everyone who wanted the Kandy–Ella train wanted the scenery, and the scenery is in the half that is open. So the standard workaround is straightforward, and it is what we arrange for our own travellers at the moment.

• Drive from Kandy to Nuwara Eliya — three and a half hours by road, and one of the best drives in the country in its own right, through the tea estates with a factory stop.
• Sleep in Nuwara Eliya. It is cold, it is odd, it thinks it is in Surrey, and it is worth a night.
• Take the train from Nanu Oya the next morning. Nanu Oya to Ella is roughly three to four hours and is the section with the tea slopes, the tunnels and the Nine Arch Bridge.
• Have your driver take the bags round by road and meet you at Ella station. This is the part independent travellers miss — you ride unencumbered, and there is no scramble for a tuk-tuk at the far end.

If you are travelling the other way, from the south, it works just as well in reverse — train from Ella up to Nanu Oya, car onward to Kandy.

Reserved tickets open thirty days ahead on the official portal, seatreservation.railway.gov.lk, and booking closes two hours before departure; the site adds a five per cent fee. The reopened Nanu Oya–Badulla trains carry first class air-conditioned and second class reserved carriages only — there is no reserved third class on them — and unreserved seats are sold at the station on the day, which is why they are the fallback when everything else has gone. One quirk from the booking site's own notes: a reserved ticket that shows Ambewela as the origin or destination is valid to board or alight at Nanu Oya.

Honestly: yes, and it is also oversold. It is a slow train through genuinely beautiful country, and it is one of the best rail journeys in Asia. It is also crowded, frequently late, and the section people photograph most — the Nine Arch Bridge — is more impressive viewed from the ground than from a carriage crossing it.

If you have four hours and a fondness for trains, take it. If you are travelling with small children, or with someone who does not enjoy being packed into a carriage, the road journey through the same hills is faster, cooler and stops where you want it to. Neither answer is wrong.