About Us

Amie Hayston is our link to you. She’s the one you’re making contact with when you reach out to us here at Magnificent Rail, getting all your questions answered and trips sorted.

Travelling since the age of 18, Amie has covered quite a lot of ground – with a desire to do even more! In her own words, she was fortunate to have travelled before the Age of the Internet and translator apps, using her trusty Lonely Planet guidebook.

Her wanderlust has so far taken her to:

• Western Europe on a Eurail Pass, travelling to England, France, Italy, Greece, Austria, Switzerland and Germany
• South America, namely Brazil and Argentina, following her Latin dance pursuits
• Dublin, where she lived for a couple of years
• Around Asia, including the Philippines, Bali, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam

Amie is really keen on our Balkans Explorer trip and our England-Scotland itinerary.

Lisa O’Donnell is the woman behind the rail magic! As our head trip designer, her genius touch makes sure every trip at Magnificent Rail is perfectly designed.

Lisa has lived overseas, most recently in Myanmar. She worked in Australian Embassies before switching over to travel. Her specialty was philanthropic travel, working with wealthy donors (household names), to visit their projects – usually remote locations. The level of detail required for this was insane!

For all you rail buffs, Lisa’s experienced some epic train rides during her extensive travels throughout Asia, leading up to her time in Myanmar, including:

• The Trans-Mongolian Railway from Mongolia to Beijing
• Bullet trains from Beijing to Xi’an (of the Terracotta Warriors fame)
• Hong Kong to Guilin via Guangzhou
• The Mandalay to Lashio over the Goteik viaduct

Lisa tells us she’s still keen to do a Balkans rail trip (maybe not quite Chris Tarrant style, but almost)!

And then, of course, there is humble ol’ Mat. His love of train travel started early as a 12-year-old following his parents around Europe. Then, at 17, he experienced his first rail adventure of India, and as he’ll tell you, “…the rot really did set in!” That was a long time ago; but his passion never went away.

Workwise, he did do a stint at V-Line among other things, though that was early on! But since entering the travel industry back in 2009, he’s never left. During this time he’s run a travel marketing agency, written a book on tourism, run trips all over the world, been a guest speaker on travel industry podcasts and… started three travel brands. Not to mention train travels in there somewhere.

Mat has a bunch of other travel projects also in the planning. Some are further along, while others are just pipe dreams – but as he says, “it’s the process that I really enjoy”.