Age Of The Train

Written by Admin on October 7, 2008 – 2:11 pm -

Many years ago, there was an advertising slogan for British Railways, ‘Let the train take the strain.’ And that was the message at the recent conference of the opposition Conservative party here in the UK.

Delegates heard that a future Conservative government would scrap plans for a third runway at Heathrow Airport in favour of a £20 billion ($36 billion) high-speed rail line. It would link Heathrow with central London, Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds, cutting journey times in half.

The Conservatives say high-speed rail links should replace short-haul flights – they estimate that 66,000 flights a year in British skies could be cut in this way.

But in an age of high speed and high tech, the romantic dream of unhurried and luxury train travel from a bygone era can still be a reality, as proved by a new British-Hungarian venture, the Danube Express (www.danube-express.com)

This is an attempt to capitalise on the growing popularity of rail travel in general and to specialise in particular in the sort of Orient Express-style private train experiences that are appealing to an ever increasing number of discerning travellers.

The operators call it a ‘hotel on wheels’ – the deluxe compartments have en-suite toilets and showers.

The Danube Express offers a combination of escorted journeys that include stops in Austria, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Turkey.

by Andy Moreton

Posted in Luxury Travel |