Luxury trains
Luxury train routes of the world
27 trains · 23 countries · ≈ 52,000 km of routes
Open the world railway map →These are the trains you ride for the train itself: restored Pullman and Belle Époque saloons, palace trains looping Rajasthan and the Konkan coast, multi-day rail cruises across the Australian outback and the Karoo. Every luxury train in the World Train Map atlas is listed here by country — from the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express to Japan's Seven Stars in Kyushu — each with its distance, duration, operator and the story that earned it a place.
🇦🇺 Australia
- The Ghan
Named for the Afghan cameleers: 2,979 km straight through the Red Centre, completed to Darwin only in 2004.
Wikipedia ↗ - Indian Pacific
Ocean to ocean across Australia, including the world’s longest railway straight: 478 dead-level kilometres on the Nullarbor.
Wikipedia ↗ - Great Southern
The Ghan’s summer sibling. Adelaide to Brisbane the long way round, with Grampians sunsets, Canberra and a Coffs Harbour beach stop en route.
Wikipedia ↗
🇨🇦 Canada
- Rocky Mountaineer
All-daylight luxury through the Canadian Rockies: glass-domed coaches, an overnight hotel stop and the Kicking Horse Pass.
Wikipedia ↗
🇫🇷 France
- Venice Simplon-Orient-Express
Belmond’s restored Art Deco sleepers of the 1920s–30s: black tie encouraged as the Alps slide past the champagne bar.
Wikipedia ↗ - Le Grand Tour
Puy du Fou’s rolling theatre: a Belle Époque sleeper loops 4,000 km around France in six days, actors staging a mystery from Reims to Chenonceau.
🇮🇳 India
- Maharajas’ Express
IRCTC’s rolling palace: a week-long royal loop from Delhi through Ranthambore’s tigers, champagne breakfast beside the Taj, and evening prayers on the Ganges.
Wikipedia ↗ - Palace on Wheels
India’s original luxury train (1982): a week-long Rajasthan circuit in carriages styled on the private saloons of the maharajas.
Wikipedia ↗ - Deccan Odyssey
Maharashtra’s answer to the Palace on Wheels: a blue-liveried luxury rake looping the Konkan coast to the Ajanta and Ellora caves.
Wikipedia ↗
🇯🇵 Japan
- Seven Stars in Kyushu
Japan’s first luxury cruise train: ten suites and a piano bar on a slow lap of Kyushu’s volcano country; berths routinely go to a lottery.
Wikipedia ↗ - Twilight Express Mizukaze
Heir to the beloved Twilight Express: emerald art-deco suites and open observation decks drifting along the San’in coast’s empty beaches.
Wikipedia ↗ - Train Suite Shiki-shima
JR East’s champagne-gold cruise train: four days from Ueno through Tōhoku and under the Seikan Tunnel to Hokkaido, in suites with cypress baths — Japan’s hardest train ticket.
Wikipedia ↗
🇳🇦 Namibia
- Desert Express
A slow luxury run from the highland capital down the escarpment to the Atlantic, with dune walks as the Namib shifts from gold to coastal fog.
Wikipedia ↗
🇵🇪 Peru
- Andean Explorer
South America’s first luxury sleeper: over a 4,319 m pass and along Lake Titicaca under Andean stars.
Wikipedia ↗ - Belmond Hiram Bingham
Belmond’s navy-and-gold Pullman to Machu Picchu, with brunch, a pisco bar and citadel entry folded into the fare since 2003.
Wikipedia ↗
🇵🇹 Portugal
- Presidential Train
Royal-blue saloon carriages built from 1890, which once carried heads of state, now a fine-dining train up the terraced Douro wine valley.
Wikipedia ↗
🇷🇺 Russia
- Golden Eagle Trans-Siberian Express
The Trans-Siberian done as a private hotel on wheels: fourteen days Moscow to Vladivostok with en-suite cabins, a bar car and stops the scheduled Rossiya cannot make.
Wikipedia ↗ - Zhemchuzhina Kavkaza
A hotel on rails looping from Moscow around the North Caucasus — Maykop, Kislovodsk, Vladikavkaz, Grozny, seaside Derbent and Nalchik — seven days, one ticket, since 2021.
🇸🇬 Singapore
- Eastern & Oriental Express
Cream-and-green carriages gliding past rubber plantations: colonial-era glamour from the Lion City to Siam.
Wikipedia ↗
🇿🇦 South Africa
- The Blue Train
A five-star hotel on rails: butlers, marble bathrooms and the Karoo semi-desert rolling past for 1,600 km.
Wikipedia ↗ - Rovos Rail
“The Pride of Africa”: teak-panelled suites through the bushveld to the smoke that thunders.
Wikipedia ↗
🇰🇷 South Korea
- Rail Cruise Haerang
Korea’s only sleeper cruise: three days around the entire peninsula from Seoul — Suncheon Bay, Busan, Gyeongju, the Jeongdongjin sunrise — with the train as the hotel.
🇪🇸 Spain
- El Transcantábrico
Spain’s first hotel-train (1983): an eight-day, metre-gauge cruise along the green Cantabrian coast from the Basque Country to Galicia.
Wikipedia ↗ - El Expreso de La Robla
Retraces the historic La Robla coal railway, Spain’s longest narrow-gauge line, on a three-day luxury run between Bilbao and León.
Wikipedia ↗ - Al Ándalus
A rolling Belle Époque palace whose 1929 sleeping cars once carried the British court from Calais to the Riviera: now easing from Seville to Madrid in seven days.
🇬🇧 United Kingdom
- Belmond Royal Scotsman
Just 40 guests aboard mahogany-panelled Pullmans that cross the Forth Bridge outbound and stable each night in Highland sidings.
Wikipedia ↗
🇺🇸 United States
- Napa Valley Wine Train
Guests wine and dine in restored early-1900s Pullman lounge cars behind vintage 1950s Alco diesels, rolling past Napa vineyards at a tasting pace.
Wikipedia ↗
How many luxury trains are there in the world?
This atlas lists 27 luxury trains across 23 countries. It is a curated selection of notable lines rather than a complete register, so the true number is higher — but every one here has its distance, operator and story checked.
Which is the longest of the luxury trains?
The Golden Eagle Trans-Siberian Express, 9,289 km from Moscow to Vladivostok, operated by Golden Eagle Luxury Trains.
What is the oldest of the luxury trains?
The Napa Valley Wine Train opened in 1864 and still runs between Napa and St. Helena.
Which country has the most luxury trains?
Australia, with 3 of the 27 listed here.
Photos via Wikimedia Commons — each route page credits the author & licence