We've got luxury cars and luxury airplanes, but trains are the transport form that best lend themselves to traveling in style. With no pain-in-the-neck aerodynamics-based curves to contend with, the boxy shape of a train car is just begging to be filled with building-based luxe touches, and several travel operators have taken full advantage. Let's take a look at some of the more notable ones from around the world.

South Africa's Blue Train has been voted the "world's leading luxury train." The five-star-hotel-on-wheels cruises through the vineyards and colonial towns of the dark continent and is one of the few trains in the world to feature en-suite bathrooms with actual bathtubs. And if you drop the silverware on the Persian rug, a 24-hour butler scuttles out to take care of it, so you needn't sully your hands.







India's Palace on Wheels promises "heaven on Earth for seven days" with ultraluxe air-conditioned rooms, two different restaurants for the picky, an opulent bar, a library, exotic fabrics, and stiff-upper-lipped service people who will probably not complain if you slap them. Tour touches include being greeted at some of the destinations by "caparisoned elephants." Alas, guests will have to bath standing up in a shower. Savagery!







Southeast Asia's Eastern & Oriental Express has pretty much the same luxuries as the aformentioned trains--gourmet food, a boutique, servants with funny last names, and a disturbing racial divide between who gets to sit down and snap pictures and who gets to stand up and fetch drinks. Globalization, you cheeky monkey!









The crown jewel of the Venice-Simplon Orient Express is a baby grand piano in the bar car (how the heck did they get that thing in there, did they assemble it on-board?). On the Orient Express, you "can never be overdressed" as you move about in cars filled with lacquered wood, polished brass, crystal and French silverware. Bonus: murder someone on board, then frame a French guy by stuffing a kimono in his luggage--it's all part of the fun!











Additional sources: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7