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Luxury train travel picks up steam Americans renew romance with rails

October 5th, 2011 Leave a comment Go to comments

During a recent visit to America, the Spanish royal couple, King Juan Carlos I and Queen Sofia, traveled to Philadelphia from New York. In accommodations ringed with white roses, they sat at a candlelit table and feasted on a meal prepared by a five-star chef. Outside the windows, the scenery was beautiful.

You don’t have to be royalty to experience what Donald Primi calls the classiest kind of first-class travel: luxury rail car. To trade first-class air travel for a luxury rail ride, all it takes is a little extra time and a lot of extra money.

Fleets growing

Even so, Primi is betting heavily that luxury rail travel will catch on. His company, Royal Rail, is enlarging its fleet of luxury rail cars to 17 this year from 12. And other owners and operators of such rail cars are doing likewise. Denver-based Rader Railcar Inc., the only custom rail car maker in the United States, said its deliveries to luxury-train operators will almost quadruple this year to 23 cars from just six in 1995.

Although passenger counts aren’t available, luxury-rail boosters insist that increased capacity reflects rising demand. “The luxury rail car is back,” declares Gregory E. Meuller, president of the American Orient Express, which last year started a transcontinental luxury-rail service. “Our sales have been really brisk.”

Passengers include travelers tired of cramped airplanes and monotonous cruises, as well as business executives searching for an unusual setting for a board meeting or client presentation. “It’s the best client-building tool I’ve ever run into,” says Arthur Samuel, director of marketing for Denver’s Metro Networks Inc., referring to the Rio Grande Ski Train, which runs between Denver and Winter Park on weekends during ski season.

Prudence vs. passion

But some wonder whether the operators of new train services aren’t more passionate than prudent. After all, trains can become an obsession. “I’ve always loved trains,” says Hallowell Dunlap, who years ago bought a car boasting a woodburning fireplace and once used by Woodrow Wilson and Herbert Hoover.

Although he offers it for lease for about $4,000 a day to travelers wanting to hook it onto an Amtrak train, he hasn’t drawn an overwhelming response. “You have to be a maniac rail fan to own a private car,” he says.

Luxury train travel may seem exotic in the U.S., but in Europe, the world-wide standard for first-class service is still the Venice-Simplon Orient Express, which has been operating between Paris and Istanbul, Turkey, since 1919.

In the U.S., a couple of hundred private rail cars are available for charter. In addition, travelers can buy tickets on new lines popping up all over the country. The South Orient Express, for instance, runs from Fort Worth, Texas, to Los Mochis, Mexico, and the Montana Rockies Rail Tours runs between Spokane, Wash., and Billings, Mont. Even Amtrak is making a stab at providing upscale service with a fleet of 195 new Superliners.

But luxury rail travel is expensive. The price to charter a private rail car is between $3,500 and $6,500 a day. The American Orient Express’ nine-day transcontinental trip between Los Angeles and Washington ranges from $4,990 per person for a deluxe-sleeper ticket to $7,450 per person for the presidential suite. Cost of the nine-day South Orient Express trip: $2,888.

On Amtrak, first-class accommodations round-trip between Los Angeles and Dallas during the peak holiday season is $1,447. That includes a room with a sofa, armchairs, fold-down beds, private bathroom with shower, and meals.

And while the price is high, availability is limited. The South Orient Express runs only twice a year, the American Orient Express 13 times. And although private rail cars can typically run on Amtrak’s schedule, some are double-deckers that can’t travel in the East because of clearance problems with tunnels and bridges.

Another problem: Some old-train restrooms are tighter than telephone booths. And lining up with 20 other people for a turn in the shower is less than comfortable.

Even so, it can be a great way to travel across the country in a leisurely fashion, says Patty Abshire, a homemaker from Bloomington, Ind. “It was a wonderful trip,” Abshire says of the AOE transcontinental trip last year with her husband, John. “It was on the pricey side, but it was worth it.”

Billed as a “cruise ship on rail,” the AOE rambles through areas that can’t be seen from the interstate. Passengers can relax in elegantly refurbished rail cars from the 1940s and 1950s, as doting stewards serve them. These tours are accompanied by lectures offered by rail historians.

Gourmet meals

Travel aboard the blue and gold AOE is meant to conjure up images of the heyday of rail travel. Gourmet meals are served on fine china, crystal, silver and linen. And the club cars are finished with mahogany, brass and bright materials.

In Colorado, the Rio Grande Ski Train makes day trips between Denver and Winter Part Resort. The scenery is gorgeous. Rushing mountain water cuts a narrow swath of sparkle in the icy South Boulder Creek, which weaves under, around and alongside the tracks. The ride is smooth and quiet, and at night you can see the glowing windows of the cars ahead.

Of the train’s 17 cars, three are first-class. A four-hour round trip in a first-class car offers nonstop dining and drinking for as many as 36. Cost: $3,500 apiece. “You get to feel like a millionaire for a day,” says Jim Bain, general manager.

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