5 unmissable luxury train travel experiences

The director Wes Anderson has described train travel as an “endangered species ... which is nevertheless very suited to our time.” What Anderson is referring to is a current longing for the analogue and offline, for experiences that keep us grounded in the present and move at a slower pace. He should know. His 2007 film, The Darjeeling Limited, was memorably set on a luxury train travelling across the Indian countryside, stoking imaginations for years to come.

This is what led the hospitality company Belmond to approach him a few years ago to reinvent Cygnus, a 1950s-era carriage for the company’s British Pullman train, which travels through England. It’s as elaborate and vivid as his film sets: walls of glossy marquetry work depicting clouds and waves, seats upholstered with custom patterned green fabric, and a ceiling painted pink and edged with silver leaf. Trips start in London and go to historic cities and estates like Bath and Chatsworth. The British Pullman also plays host to a cabaret on wheels, a series of immersive evening journeys that offers a mix of fine dining and entertainment.

Eleanor Flagler Hardy, president and co-founder of the Society of International Railway Travelers, highlights Belmond’s sleek 64-passenger Eastern & Oriental Express as one of her recent favourites. After a four-year Covid-related hiatus, it has been stylishly renovated and is now back on the rails with two journeys that depart from Singapore and travel through the jungles of Malaysia.

“We love the Peranakan-influenced cuisine, the sumptuous interiors with marquetry and rich velvets, and the open-air observation car,” she notes.

The observation car in the Eastern & Oriental Express

The ne plus ultra of luxury train travel is the newly polished Seven Stars in Kyushu, which takes passengers across Japan’s Kyushu island in a seven-car train complete with a piano bar, a tea room, and deluxe suites. The Seven Stars is such a coveted ticket that the company had to create a lottery system to accommodate demand.

Closer to home is the four-night transcontinental journey from Toronto to Vancouver in a prestige-class sleeper cabin on The Canadian, a gleaming 1955 train with a glass-domed observation car that glides through the Canadian Rockies. The same trip on a plane takes a little over five hours, but when it comes to adventure and forging memories, going too fast often means missing out on the best parts.

This article was originally featured in the April 2024 Issue of Harper’s Bazaar USA