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 mid-2026 the great majority of damaged sites on the main line had been restored, with a handful of difficult locations between Rambukkana and Kadugannawa still outstanding. Those few are the reason Kandy is still cut off from the hills by rail.

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. 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.

Closed: Kandy to Nanu Oya

The stretch above it, through Hatton and the high plateau, is still under repair. Sri Lanka Railways has not published a firm reopening date, though full reinstatement of the whole Colombo–Badulla main line is being targeted for the end of 2026. Treat that target the way you would treat any infrastructure target.

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 and the good trains go quickly in high season. Unreserved third class you simply buy at the station on the day, which is why it is the fallback when everything else is sold out.

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.