The Royal Scotsman's observation car.  Crossing the famous Forth Bridge on this open-air viewing platform is an amazing experience... Book your tickets at www.royalscotsman.com

Introducing the Royal Scotsman cruise train...

The Royal Scotsman is Scotland's very own luxury cruise train, offering 2, 3, 4, 5 or 7 night tours of the Scottish Highlands.  Run by the same people who operate the Venice Simplon Orient Express, the Royal Scotsman sets the same top-end standards of service, accommodation & cuisine.  They aim to create the atmosphere of a Scottish 5-star country house hotel, and they succeed.  The 9-coach train carries a maximum of only 36 passengers with a passenger to staff ratio of just 3:1, so it does indeed feel very exclusive.  Having experienced the Royal Scotsman, I have to say that it's a pretty unbeatable combination of superb scenery on Britain's most amazing train routes, country-house all-inclusive luxury with great food, wine & service plus some extremely well-chosen off-train excursions.  A trip on the Royal Scotsman doesn't come cheap, but if it's a special occasion or a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see a lot of Scotland in a very short time, you really won't be disappointed.  This page will give you the low-down on the whole Royal Scotsman experience...

• The Royal Scotsman operates from April to October, offering a 2-night Highland tour, a 3-night Western tour or a 4-night Highland Classic tour.

• You can combine the 3-night Western with either the 2-night Highland or 4-night Highland Classic to make a 5 or 7 night 'Grand tour'.

• All Royal Scotsman tours start in Edinburgh and beautifully showcase the history, culture & scenery of the Scottish Highlands.

• Prices start at around £2,350 per person for the 2-night Highland, £3,440 for the 3-night Western, or £4,330 for the 4-night Highland Classic, based on two people sharing.

• Royal Scotsman prices include all meals, alcoholic & non-alcoholic drinks, on-board accommodation & off-train excursions such as (depending on the tour) a guided tour of a whisky distillery, clay pigeon shooting on a Scottish laird's estate, a visit to a highland woollen mill.

• You can check Royal Scotsman itineraries, current prices & availability & book tours online at www.royalscotsman.com.

• Which tour should you choose?    How to book a trip on the Royal Scotsman   Hotels in Edinburgh   Travel to Edinburgh by train

Boarding the Royal Scotsman in Edinburgh...

Follow the piper!  You check in at the Edinburgh Waverley station first class lounge for tea or coffee.  When the train is ready for boarding, follow the piper to the platform where the Royal Scotsman is waiting.		The red carpet treatment...  The Drum Major pipes you aboard, and there's time to settle into your compartment before finding an armchair in the lounge-observation car for departure...

The lounge-observation car...

This is the social hub of the Royal Scotsman train, located either at the rear or (for some parts of the trip) immediately behind the locomotive.  The lounge has armchairs, sofas, coffee tables, a bar serving tea & coffee, alcoholic & non-alcoholic drinks (all included in the price, just ask), and best of all there's an open-air observation platform, great for photography.  The day's activities, timetable & menus are posted in the carriage vestibule.  The bar carries some 30 different types of Scottish whisky, from the stronger west coast whiskies like Lagavulin, Talisker or Oban to the smoother eastern malts like Dalwhinnie.  You might not get through all 30, but with some suitable suggestions and guidance from the train manager and you may well find yourself doing some... er... interesting research...

Just about to leave Edinburgh, and the champagne is already starting to flow...  This is the lounge car, looking towards the open-air viewing platform.		The Royal Scotsman's observation car, in a siding at Keith between Inverness & Aberdeen.  Guest rejoin the train here after visiting Johnston's woollen mill in Elgin.

Your private Royal Scotsman stateroom...

Your wood-panelled stateroom includes two single beds (there are a few single rooms with one bed) and all the facilities of a good (though compact) hotel room:  Small en suite shower & toilet, desk, table, wardrobe, tissues, mineral water, bathrobe & slippers, writing paper, soap, fluffy towels, shampoo & shower gel.  The train is always stabled in a siding or quiet platform for the night, so you don't have to sleep on the move.  The cars were specially rebuilt as 'hotel cars' for the Royal Scotsman from 1960s Pullman seating cars.  You can find more information about the history of the Royal Scotsman train here.

Twin room, looking towards the small en suite...		The same twin room, looking away from the en suite...

The Royal Scotsman dining experience...

The Royal Scotsman has two dining cars, 'Raven' with a long central table & 16 seats, and 'Victory' with conventional restaurant car tables offering 20 seats.  'Victory' dates from 1945 making it the oldest car on the train.  The meals and well-chosen wines are all included in the price.  The food is cooked on board in the train's tiny kitchen, and it's excellent.  At least one dinner on each Royal Scotsman tour is 'formal', so remember to bring your dinner jacket!

The restaurant car, with tables for 2 or 4.  Places are not allocated, you can sit where you like...		A personal favourite - fresh Scottish kippers for breakfast...

Off-train excursions...

Each Royal Scotsman tour includes several well-chosen off-train excursions, which vary depending on which tour you choose.  Be warned, the clay pigeon shooting is addictive...  Tea & coffee followed afterwards at the big house, where you may even get to meet the Laird.  In the evening over after-dinner drinks in the lounge car, you may be privileged to listen to Highlander Ray Owens talk about 17th century Highland Life, which he can bring alive like no-one else.

Clay pigeon shooting...		A whisky distillery tour...		A visit to a Scottish woollen mill...

The scenery...

If you drive around the Highlands, the winding single-track roads of childhood memory have sadly been replaced across much of the countryside by wide straight 60mph concrete highways blasted thoughtlessly through the landscape.  The good news is that you can still see unspoilt Highland countryside from Scotland's railways, and the Royal Scotsman train takes you through some of the best scenery in Scotland (or indeed, in Britain).  The most scenic route of all is probably the West Highland Line from Glasgow to Fort William & Mallaig, so for sheer remote Highland beauty take the Royal Scotsman's 3-night Western Tour.  But the Highland Line is also beautiful as the photos below try to show, and the 2-night Highland tour & 4-night Classic tour also take you across the famous Tay & Forth Bridges between Dundee & Edinburgh.

On this 2-night Highland tour the Royal Scotsman left Edinburgh, crossed the famous Forth Bridge, passed Perth and headed up the Highland Line for a visit to Dalwhinnie whisky distillery...		The Highland Line...  Wild & remote highland scenery on the Perth to Inverness 'Highland Line'.  This is the line's summit at the Druimuachdar Pass.  At 1,484 feet (452m) it's the highest point on the whole British rail network.

Mountains, rivers & valleys.  The open air viewing platform really is a big plus for photographers.  After the distillery visit guests rejoined the train at Boat of Garten on the heritage Strathspey Railway where the Royal Scotsman train stabled overnight for dinner and a good night's sleep...		Next morning a road coach transferred guests to a country estate for clay pigeon shooting or country walking, returning to the train for lunch.  Here, the Royal Scotsman crosses the Findhorn Viaduct near Tomatin on the Highland Line.  Just south of Inverness it crosses the viaduct across Culloden moor, where Bonnie Prince Charlie was finally defeated.

Aperitifs & canapés before formal dinner...  Dalwhinnie 15 year old Single Malt in hand, time to step out onto the open-air viewing platform in the evening sun. On the line between Inverness & Aberdeen, the gorse is in full flower...		Fine dining on the move whilst passing Scottish scenery is wonderful.  This is farmland between Inverness & Aberdeen.  Passing Aberdeen, the train stabled overnight in a quiet platform at Dundee.  Next day, it crossed the famous Tay & Forth Bridges back to Edinburgh...

The Tay & Forth Bridges...

The Royal Scotsman's 2-night Highland & 4-night Highland Classic tours take you over the famous Tay Bridge & Forth Bridge between Dundee & Edinburgh, and these deserve a special mention.  Once the longest & largest bridges in the world, it's a real privilege to cross them standing on the Royal Scotsman's open-air viewing platform, as you get views and a photo opportunity that you simply don't get from any regular sealed-in train.  As you can see in the photo below, the stumps of the piers from the first (1878) Tay Bridge remain visible in the water next to the current (1887) Tay Bridge, a macabre reminder of the first Tay Bridge which collapsed under a train in a storm in 1879 with the loss of all 72 passengers on board.  The Tay Bridge Disaster was immortalised in a poem by William McGonagall, arguably Scotland's worst poet.  The train was found on the sea bed, still encased in the bridge girders.  The locomotive was found relatively undamaged and was raised and returned to service.  Nicknamed 'The Diver' (it sank twice whilst being salvaged and brought ashore) it was only scrapped in 1937, but for years no driver would dare take it over the Tay Bridge...

The Tay Bridge, once the world's longest bridge.
Crossing the Tay Bridge.  The stumps are all that remain of the first Tay Bridge, which collapsed in a gale in the Tay Bridge Disaster of 1879.		The Forth Bridge, opened in 1887 as the largest bridge in the world, now a symbol of Scotland, seen from the Royal Scotsman's observation car.

Which Royal Scotsman tour should you choose?

The West Highland line (see the West Highland Line page) is arguably the most scenic route in the whole of Britain, so if it's wild, remote Highland scenery you're after, choose the Royal Scotsman's 3-night Western Tour.  If you can only spare 2 nights (3 days), then take the 2-night Highland Tour, as the Highland Line from Edinburgh via Perth to Inverness is also beautiful, if not quite a wild or remote, and you'll get to cross the famous Tay & Forth bridge on your return to Edinburgh.  However, their most popular tour is the 4-night Highland Classic, similar to the Highland tour but with a journey along another candidate for most scenic route in Britain, the line from Inverness to Kyle of Lochalsh, just across the water from the Isle of Skye.  If you can't decide and just want to see everything, you can combine the Western with either the Highland or Highland Classic tours to make a 5 or 7 night trip.

Book  a trip on the Royal Scotsman:  www.royalscotsman.com...

You can easily check prices & availability and book your chosen tour online at www.royalscotsman.com.

Hotels in Edinburgh...

Consider these two historic rival hotels before or after your Royal Scotsman tour, both luxurious hotels in prime locations, both originally built by railway companies:

• The Balmoral Hotel, an excellent 5-star hotel now run by Rocco Forte.  Built in 1902 as the North British Hotel and known locally as the 'NB', this was the North British Railway's prestigious Edinburgh Hotel, located on Edinburgh's famous Princes Street right next to Waverley station where the Royal Scotsman departs and where trains from London & the south arrive.  In the 19th & early 20th centuries, the North British Railway was one of two competing railways linking Scotland with the south, handling trains to and from London's Kings Cross station via the East Coast Route via York & Newcastle.

• Caledonian Hilton Hotel, 5-star.  The Caledonian Railway was the North British Railway's arch rival, which handled trains via the West Coast Route to and from London's Euston station via Carlisle and Crewe.  In 1903, the Caledonian Railway built their own imposing railway hotel at the opposite end of Princes street, next to their own Princes Street station.  The hotel is now all that's left of Princes Street station, which was closed in 1965, all trains now use the North British Railway's Edinburgh's Waverley station.  This hotel is about to undergo a £14m refurbishment, and in 2012 will become The Caledonian, a Waldorf Astoria Hotel.

Travel to Edinburgh by train...

London to Edinburgh takes only 4½ hours by train, city centre to city centre stress-free, trains run every hour or better and cost from just £16.50 one-way if you book in advance.  The journey takes you via York, so why not stop in York for a day on the way?  To check train times, fares and to buy tickets online from London or anywhere in Britain to Edinburgh, see the Beginner's Guide to Train Travel in Britain.

If you can afford it, The Royal Scotsman is a great way to see a lot of Scotland, in luxury, in a very short time.  This is the Royal Scotsman train stabled for the night at Boat of Garten on the Strathspey Railway.		Cheers!  On the open-air observation platform before dinner...

A bit of background to the Royal Scotsman train...

The Royal Scotsman has been running since 1985, when it was started by two entrepreneurs using an assortment of leased coaches.  It was a success, and this enabled a new purpose built (or rather, purpose rebuilt) set of Royal Scotsman carriages to be introduced in 1990.  Six of the nine coaches including most of the sleeping-cars, dining-car 'Raven' and the lounge-observation car, were rebuilt from Pullman seating cars originally built by Metro-Cammell in Birmingham in 1960 and used on prestige trains on the East Coast route between London Kings Cross, Leeds, York, Newcastle & Edinburgh.  The coaches' interiors are radically different form their original 1960 interiors, with new Edwardian-style interior wood panelling provided by a specialist firm in Bournemouth.  Dining-car number 2 'Victory' was built in 1945 as an LNER (London & North Eastern Railway) first class carriage, used for much of its life as a inspection saloon for railway officials.  The last two vehicles (one service & generator car, one crew/sleeper) were built in the early 1980s as British Rail Mark 3 sleeping-cars.  The Royal Scotsman was acquired by Orient Express Trains Ltd in 2005, and it's now part of their portfolio of world-class luxury trains.  More details about the Royal Scotsman carriages.  The locomotive that hauls the Royal Scotsman train is contracted from the West Coast Railway Co. Ltd, and it's usually a ex-British Rail class 47.  Dating from the 50s & 60s, class 47s were once the most common mainline diesel in Britain but are now a rarity.

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