Nothing can beat the romance of luxury train travel between the wars

There may never have been a murder on the real Orient Express, but otherwise Agatha Christie’s depiction of luxury train travel was pretty accurate. Cordon Bleu cooking, accompanied by fine vintage wines and served by immaculately turned out waiters, was offered to the first class passengers, who often included members of the aristocracy and senior diplomats.

The Orient Express was inaugurated in 1883, just as the railways, both in the UK and elsewhere, were starting to realise that their more affluent customers were not only a key source of revenue but also deserved special attention. As Martyn Pring puts it: ‘Higher society was on the move, requiring more opulent and spacious modes of transport.’

The railway companies had in fact been rather slow to improve their services to meet the needs of this growing group of travellers. Initially, the best way for the rich to ensure a ride in the manner to which they were accustomed was simply to hitch their own carriages to the back of an existing rail service. Jay Gould, for example, who at one point owned about a seventh of the American railways, had four coaches, one of which housed a special cow to produce fresh milk with just the right proportion of butterfat.

Better still was to have your own train. Mostly this was the prerogative of royalty, exemplified by Queen Victoria, a frequent, if somewhat nervous, passenger who did not allow her train to travel at more than 35mph. The rival companies operating on the east and west coast mainlines soon each provided her with trains, one of which was 14 carriages long. Not to be outdone, the Great Western Railway unveiled its Diamond Royal Jubilee Train in 1897.

Even better was to have your own station, like the Duke of Sutherland, whose ‘Dunrobin’ — he was probably oblivious to the pun — had, according to the Tatler, ‘waiting-room, booking office and other rooms [which] all comprised a charming picturesque building built of the best Scots fir’.