Train travel: The best new journeys on rails in 2025

Traveling on rails

This is how to travel in style: The most beautiful new train journeys in 2025

Traveling by train is booming. There are exciting new connections in the new year – from the Italian Orient Express to the Saudi desert dream. These are our favorites.

Published today at 11:30 p.m

The Dream of the Desert is scheduled to transport the first passengers through the Saudi desert before the end of the year.

Photo: Arsenale Group

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Does your heart beat for railways? Do you travel on rails? Then this could be yours year. In 2025 it will rain fresh routes, innovative projects and mercilessly luxurious wagon escapades. Whether to tried-and-tested Grand Tour destinations, between snow-capped mountains or even through the desert, the – and of course the – smart people are definitely currently traveling by train.

All we say is: no airport fuss, no thrombosis stockings – and food that deserves the name even outside of business and first class. Here is our selection of the most tempting new products.

Amtrak

Why not travel through the USA on rails?

Photo: Amtrak

A road trip through the USA – but without your hands on the wheel and gas station stops? An unconventional idea that of course also has its charm. Amtrak, the largest US railway player with an incredible 34,000 kilometers of tracks across the country, has pumped a lot of dollars into noticeably comfortable compartments and into the (re)expansion of its route network in recent years. For example, you can now travel from Mobile, Alabama, to New Orleans again – for the first time in 20 years!

Will whiz along the US East Coast at up to 240 km/h: The new Acela high-speed train during a test drive.

Photo: Amtrak

The brand new Acela high-speed fleet on the Northeast Corridor, the highly frequented rail connection on the lively northeast coast that winds from Boston south through New York and Philadelphia to Washington, DC, is also a guarantee for sweaty hands.

Further information: www.amtrak.com

Orient Express La Dolce Vita

Cool elegance: The designers were inspired by the Art Deco style for the interior of the Dolce Vita train.

Photo: Orient Express

Admittedly, the name may be a bit derivative. But when a top-class train roars through the not exactly unspectacular Italian landscape, we think it can be marketed with a bit of drama. Article. The Orient Express La Dolce Vita schedule includes coastal excursions to Venice and Portofino, forays through Tuscany and even detours down to Sicily.

The first trips are scheduled for spring – and while we’re on the subject of clichés, we’d like to send a quick prayer to heaven so that no one comes up with the idea of striking just then…

Lying in bed and letting Tuscany go by: yes, that has something of the dolce vita.

Photo: Orient Express

The bar probably won’t be quite as empty during regular operations from February onwards.

Photo: Orient Express

Once you’re on board, you have the choice between twelve deluxe cabins and 18 suites, all of which are very elegant; We are tempted to speak of “ferrophilic neo-art deco,” where geometric meets large-scale mirrored elements under wood-paneled wagon ceilings. The Italian Orient Express is in top visual form at blue hour, when the crew prepares the entire vehicle for the evening crescendo.

The latter means for the guests: You have an aperitivo in the lounge bar and then glide – as if on rails, so much jokes are required – into the dining car, where a meal composed by a three-star Michelin chef has already been composed Menu is waiting. Dolce, we say yes.

Further information: www.orient-express.com

Belmond Britannic Explorer

Where guests are pampered to the full: The luxury provider Belmond is sending a night train through Great Britain for the first time.

Photo: Belmond

Whenever a new Belmond line is launched somewhere, rail aficionados around the world pull out a really good drink from the cellar, it is rumored. In 2025 the corks will pop again, because the legendary luxury travel provider – which once entered the train business in order to transport the illustrious guests of the Hotel Cipriani to Venice as befits their status, and which now also travels in Asia and South America – is sending its first with the Britannic Explorer Night train through the British countryside.

Solid but also cozy: a view of a suite in the Britannic Explorer.

Photo: Belmond

You should already have a tie or a little black dress packed for dinner here.

Photo: Belmond

From July, the jewel box will roll on rails from London to Cornwall, Wales and the Lake District. Depending on which of the three destinations you go to, you might be looking at a party in a typical pub, a wine tasting in Cornwall or a gala dinner at the Manoir aux Quat’ Saisons in Oxfordshire (the country house hotel, which also belongs to the Belmond group, is so outrageously pretty , as if it came straight from a picture book – for upper class children).

And as an unwritten Belmond law says: On board you will be pampered to the fullest – be it with a massage in the on-site spa or with a cocktail in the obligatory panoramic car. Pack your tie and little black dress because: This is a move like a scone with clotted cream and jam. Tasteful, charming, old-fashioned, sophisticated.

Further information: www.belmond.com

European sleeper

The sleeper travels 20 hours from Brussels to Venice. You can get a good night’s sleep there.

Photo: European sleeper

Does the “new” train travel necessarily have to be expensive? NO. On European Sleeper’s latest night connection, the quite impressive Brussels-Venice route costs almost exactly 111 francs (for the “normal”, upright seat; couchettes and sleeping cars each cost a few tens more). With a total of 20 hours of driving time, it doesn’t cost 6 minutes per hour – a fair deal. However, the stopovers in Antwerp, Rotterdam, Utrecht, Munich, Cologne, Innsbruck, Verona and Bolzano constantly tempt you to get out as planned for sightseeing, and then it may turn out to be more expensive than planned…

The first night train from the Belgian-Dutch start-up European Sleeper ran between Berlin and Brussels in 2023.

Photo: European sleeper

The sleeping cars are available with up to three beds. Each compartment has its own washbasin – but if you want to go to the toilet, you have to go out into the hallway.

Photo: European sleeper

Trains on the seasonal route are scheduled to run twice a week in February and March. Ideal timing for sports holidays, on the way to skiing in the Alps or – for the very brave who laugh in the face of overtourism – to the Carnival in Venice (February 22nd – March 4th, 2025).

Further information: www.europeansleeper.eu

Dream of the desert

Italian designers have given the Dream of the Desert a subtle oriental look.

Photo: Arsenale Group

Saudi Arabia is currently becoming a luxury destination at a breathtaking pace. The train, which is currently somewhat vaguely announced “by the end of 2025”, should also be breathtaking. What we know: The 40-cabin Dream of the Desert is intended to connect the capital Riyadh with al-Qurayyat near the Jordanian border. The route of almost 1,300 kilometers across the desert kingdom also passes the King Salman Bin Abdulaziz Nature Reserve; Trips with one or two overnight stays can be booked.

1,300 kilometers through the desert: The Dream of the Desert – here in a computer simulation – should also be on the road in real life by the end of the year.

Photo: Arsenale Group

Yes, you can stay here for a day or two: take a look at one of the suites.

Photo: Arsenale Group

Sketches of the interior of the Saudi fairytale train are still few and far between, but you can get a rough idea of it: Saudi Arabia Railways, which was only founded in 2006, is working on this prestigious project with the Italian Arsenale Group, which also runs the Orient Express La Dolce Vita (see above) built. The result should also be quite dignified – with an oriental flair, of course.

Further information: arsenalegroup.com

Paulina Szczesniak Heads the travel department of the “SonntagsZeitung” and the “Tages-Anzeiger”. More info

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