RIGHT ON TRACK

“I have seldom heard a train go by and not wished I were on it.” So wrote American novelist Paul Theroux in the opening lines of his 1975 classic travelogue The Great Railway Bazaar. The romance of riding the rails has not diminished in the decades since, and luxury travel operators are taking things up a notch on two classic Eurasian train journeys.

Belmond ( belmond.com) is debuting three new Grand Suites on the Venice Simplon-OrientExpress named after Vienna, Prague, and Budapest, three of its destinations. Global firm Wimberly Interiors drew inspiration from each city to design spaces sympathetic to the 1920s train carriages they inhabit. Cubist-inspired mosaic patterns adorn the Prague Grand Suite, Vienna’s imperial heritage is expressed in the ornate details and a headboard with silk fabric panels in its namesake accommodation, while the Budapest Grand Suite plays up the contrasts between the Hungarian capital’s Gothic and Ottoman architecture.

Over in Russia and Central Asia, Golden Eagle Luxury Trains ( goldeneagleluxurytrains.com) has just launched Republics of the Silk Road, a 17-day itinerary from

Moscow to Almaty through all five ex-Soviet “stans.” Passengers will tour southern Kazakhstan’s Baikonur Cosmodrome; the UNESCO-listed cities of Samarkand, Bukhara, and Khiva in Uzbekistan; and Issyk-Kul, a saline lake in Kyrgyzstan ringed by the Tian Shan mountains.

And train aficionados can also look forward to a unique trip next year. The company will celebrate its 25th year of operations along the Trans-Siberian Railway with the first all-steam Winter Wonderland trip in February, when the Golden Eagle will be pulled by 20 different steam locomotives on a 22-day passage from Vladivostok to Moscow via the shores of Lake Baikal and Kazan, a city known for its blend of Russian and Tatar culture. Theroux would no doubt approve.