Why ‘super niche’ luxury train travel is on track to ‘go prime time’

In 2025 the most luxurious new hotel room may be on wheels. L’Observatoire, a two-person suite on Belmond’s Venice Simplon-Orient-Express, will cost £80,000 (US$101,000) per night when it enters service in March, making it the most expensive train cabin ever. For that sum, guests will get to sleep inside a cabinet of curiosities created by French photographer and street artist JR. It includes two oculus-shaped skylights that open for stargazing, a “secret” tea room with a fireplace hidden behind a bookshelf, and a free-standing brass bathtub near the foot of the double bed. All of it moves with the Belmond train, on journeys lasting from one to five nights that connect European cities such as Geneva and Innsbruck or Venice and Amsterdam. L’Observatoire is part of a growing number of opulent, artist-created suites on trains that will criss-cross the European continent in 2025. The first came in 2021, when Wes Anderson, better known for directing films, designed a custom carriage for the British Pullman; now the Royal Scotsman has added two Grand Suites designed by Parisian interior designer Tristan Auer. In the year ahead, several more luxury trains will debut across the continent, both from Belmond and other companies, with designs each more opulent than the next. This luxury rail renaissance “reflects a structural shift in how people want to spend their time”, says Samy Ghachem, general manager of La Dolce Vita Orient Express, a new luxury train outfit whose first hotel on wheels will have 1960s Italian interior styling and en suite bathrooms for all cabins and suites when it enters service between Rome and Montalcino, Tuscany, on April 4. It’s the millennial and Gen Zer obsessed with vintage record players and Polaroid cameras and clamouring for a room in an uber-traditional hotel Jack Ezon, travel consultant, on the luxury rail boom Travel advisers agree. Some of the most sought-after journeys are already sold out for 2025 and booking well into 2026. “Think about how river cruises blossomed in the past decade,” says Jack Ezon, founder and managing partner of luxury travel consultancy Embark Beyond. “Train travel, which is super niche and limited, will go prime time in the same way by 2030.” “Requests for train trips have grown 158 per cent in the past five years, especially among the younger generation,” he adds. “It’s the millennial and Gen Zer obsessed with vintage record players and Polaroid cameras, buying the US$1,000 cashmere Ritz Paris Frame hoodie and clamouring for a room in an uber-traditional hotel.” It’s also a business that can grow easily in tandem with demand, says Ghachem. New trains have only a few rooms apiece, which makes them easy to fill, and then there’s “the opportunity to grow or expand by adding additional trains with new and different itineraries”. Track infrastructure is growing worldwide – consider the Tren Maya in Mexico and new routes sprouting across Europe – meaning those expenses, too, are defrayed. Ezon, Ghachem and Belmond chief executive Dan Ruff all see the growth of luxury train trips as tapping into other trends, too, from slow travel, to seeing less touristy (and uncrowded) towns to paying more for longer leisure trips. But Gary Franklin, vice-president of trains and cruises at Belmond, says there’s more to it. “I’ve been on the platform when the train comes in and watched adults, who have seen and done it all, light up like children. It’s escapism and magic they’re after,” he says. “We’re in the business of travel experiences. Trains are an extension of this,” he says. “There’s something about being spoiled, about looking at this incredible marquetry, about looking out of the windows as you pass through the Alps. It creates this magic, and that’s why people come back time and time again,” Ruff says. “We have people just begging us to do more of these trips,” he says, pointing to repeat guests who have taken upwards of 20 train trips with the company. For Ghachem, train magic means watching from inside a carriage as a Dolce Vita train decouples in Calabria and gets loaded onto a ferry one car at a time, so it can cross the Strait of Messina. “There’s nothing else like it,” he says. Both Ghachem and Ruff say that connecting train trips with hotel stays is yet another advantage. Dolce Vita guests will be able to extend their stay on land at La Minerva, the first Orient Express hotel in Rome, with 93 rooms designed by the hot designer of the moment, Hugo Toro; the hotel will open in April by the Pantheon, just in time for the company’s first train departure from Roma Ostiense station. Belmond similarly runs resorts across Europe that can connect with train itineraries. We can unlock things and go places that you can’t get to easily otherwise Belmond chief executive Dan Ruff “Americans tend to come to Italy for 10 days and hit their trifecta of big cities,” says Ghachem of La Dolce Vita Orient Express’ main clientele. “The train becomes an easy [two- or three-day] add-on at the beginning or end of a trip.” Dolce Vita has plans beyond Italy, with three additional trains rolling out in 2026 and beyond; they’re expected to explore such places as Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Uzbekistan. Belmond, too, is doubling down on global service, and operators like Seven Stars in Japan are seeing such a rush of demand that bookings are now offered only by application. “Trains are an incredible way to experience the countryside,” says Ruff. “We can unlock things and go places that you can’t get to easily otherwise. And all this comes at a time when slow travel has never been more appealing.”

Why ‘super niche’ luxury train travel is on track to ‘go prime time’

People’s love of slow travel, new experiences and vintage is behind the increasing popularity of ultra-luxury train travel