Luxury route
Belmond Royal Scotsman
Edinburgh → Edinburgh · Scotland
Belmond Royal Scotsman in pictures
Photographs by their authors, hosted on Wikimedia Commons · tap through for the licence
- Distance
- 1,000 km
- Fastest time
- 5 days
- Top speed
- 100 km/h
- Operator
- Belmond
- Train
- Edwardian-style Pullman rake
- Countries
- Scotland
- In service since
- 1985
- Runs
- 2–7-night journeys, Apr–Oct
Figures are published values, not live data · corrections log
Just 40 guests aboard mahogany-panelled Pullmans that cross the Forth Bridge outbound and stable each night in Highland sidings.
Since 1985 this maroon rake of Edwardian-style Pullmans has been Scotland’s slowest luxury: a maximum of 40 guests, dining cars laid with white linen, and an open observation veranda scented with pine and peat smoke. The Classic Splendours circuit leaves Edinburgh over the Forth Bridge, rounds the coast to Aberdeen and Speyside, then crosses to the Kyle line before drifting home past Glamis and the Tay. The train stables in country sidings overnight so the Highlands pass by daylight.
How this line was checked
- Checked against OpenStreetMap: 92.1% of this line lies within 250 m of real track (median 6 m); the longest stretch away from it is 13 km
- The operator publishes this line's timetable: Belmond — a place to look it up, not a check of our drawing
- Wikipedia has an article for this line
Along the way
- Forth Bridge
- North Sea coast to Aberdeen
- Keith & Speyside distilleries
- Kyle line along Loch Carron
- Plockton & Kyle of Lochalsh
- Tay Bridge into Dundee
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Belmond’s restored Art Deco sleepers of the 1920s–30s: black tie encouraged as the Alps slide past the champagne bar.
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