‘So old-fashioned, it’s new-fashioned’: Riding the rails on the Belmond Royal Scotsman

What goes around, they say, comes around. And what goes around on rails, rather slowly, with a stately sway and a soothing clickety-clack, has come around once more with a vengeance. The resurgence of high-end train travel isn’t difficult to understand. It’s a joyful throwback to a mode of travel grown so unfamiliar as to have become novel once more — so old-fashioned, it’s new-fashioned. We love the glossy look and velvety feel of it. We appreciate the notion that it’s a more environmentally responsible means of seeing the world. And in terms of the way it throws complete strangers together at close quarters, against ever-changing and generally highly picturesque landscapes, no other form of transportation can begin to compete with it.

So when I was invited recently to join a two-night trip around the Highlands on Belmond’s Royal Scotsman to celebrate the train’s 40th anniversary, I was there like a shot.

This particular trip was a little out of the ordinary. Rather than a random assortment of paying passengers, the train was packed with specially selected influencers, tastemakers and celebrities. For better or worse, I didn’t have a clue who any of these influential, tasteful and celebrated people were. Let them eat cake, I thought. Let us all eat cake. (And we did.)

The Royal Scotsman has evolved considerably over the past four decades. Belmond (which also runs the Venice-Simplon Orient-Express, the Andean Explorer, the Eastern & Oriental Express, the British Pullman and the brand-new Britannic Explorer) continues to innovate, not only in terms of the Royal Scotsman’s routes and itineraries (there are currently 15 of them), but also themes and activities (food and drink, wellness, estates and gardens, castles and islands) and on-board indulgences (notably the luscious little Dior Spa and the addition this summer of two jumbo-sized Grand Suites).

Ours was a slightly tweaked version of the two-night Taste of Scotland itinerary: a leisurely loop from Edinburgh up through the Cairngorms to Boat of Garten, on to Keith, then back down to Edinburgh via Dundee. My favourite moments, as with every trip I’ve had the good fortune to take on a Belmond train, tended to be quiet ones. Which is definitely not to say I’ve got anything whatsoever against the sound of champagne corks popping, whisky glasses clinking, raucous laughter over lavish dinners, the fiddling and stomping of ceilidh musicians or even (as on this trip) phat beats mixed by an alarmingly glamorous Danish DJ, Fiona Jane. But something about fancy train travel brings out the low-key, lo-fi loafer in me. After dinner on the first night, for instance, we piled off the train in what appeared to be the middle of nowhere to be entertained by a troupe of highly energised Celts who, duded up in furry-leathery Mad Max-meets-The Flintstones outfits, thumped gigantic drums and hurled balls of fire at one another. Impressive as these antics were, they were, to my eye, no match for the sight of the train itself, silent and still, waiting at a discreet distance for us to return, its golden lights glowing in the greater darkness.

Another low-key highlight came the following day at the Rothiemurchus Estate when I went forest bathing with a softly spoken American yoga instructor named Katie White. An experience I’d recommend to anyone. This blissful, sun-dappled interlude on sheepskin rugs beneath swaying boughs was followed by a ‘survival skills’ session with Zeki Basan, a noted, locally based outdoorsman. Basan’s bushcraft tips and ruminations on the interconnectedness of natural systems were a huge and slightly unexpected hit with our cashmere-swaddled, Hunter-wellied crowd. Basan is a strapping, thoughtful lad with a knowing twinkle in his eye and precisely the right kind of patter. He had the cool London kids in the palm of his calloused hand, oohing and aahing as he extolled the virtues of tanning one’s own leather from salmon skins.

Our survival skills sharpened and senses heightened, we fearlessly yet mindfully trekked the 50 metres or so back to the lodge where we were treated to an exceptional lunch of Middle Eastern-influenced dishes prepared by Basan’s mother, Ghillie Basan, who wrote the book (actually, dozens of them) on Middle Eastern-influenced dishes for a British readership long before Yotam Ottolenghi arrived on the scene.

The days were unseasonably warm, sunny, cloudless and altogether un-Scottish. I spent a lot of time gazing idly out of the windows of the Observation Car, listening to the gentle slap of low-hanging leaves against the side of the train and remembering previous trips on the Royal Scotsman. As we passed through Keith I recalled, with a nostalgic pang, the magnificent Strathisla distillery there, surely one of the prettiest distilleries in the land, producing one of my favourite malts, and the superb Chivas Brothers-owned hotel, Linn House, nearby. My pang was, however, effectively dealt with by the Royal Scotsman’s crack bar team, who quickly located a bottle of Strathisla 12-year-old.

Another place I visited on an earlier Royal Scotsman trip that we passed by, but didn’t stop at this time, was Ballindalloch Castle, where the first Aberdeen Angus cows were bred. The current laird’s parents, Clare Macpherson-Grant and Oliver Russell, showed us around on that occasion. The castle has been in the Macpherson-Grant family for goodness knows how long. ‘Oliver had never set foot in Scotland before he met me,’ Clare said. ‘When he got me, he got the castle and the cows too.’ Oliver, who might have been a model for one of the more benign characters in an early Evelyn Waugh novel, seemed happy with the outcome. While we were in the garden he gestured at some cows grazing in the distance. ‘Admission to the castle is free,’ he quipped. ‘But the bull may charge later! Haw haw haw!’

The combination of comfort, conviviality and lovely landscapes that you get with the Royal Scotsman is unique. True, all of Belmond’s trains offer comfort, conviviality and lovely landscapes. But only one of those trains operates in Scotland, and Scotland is special. A trip on the Royal Scotsman remains one of the great train journeys of the world. Here’s to the next 40 years.

Journeys on Royal Scotsman, A Belmond Train start from £4,800 per person (for the Taste of Highlands itinerary). The price includes all meals, unlimited soft drinks and excursions as per the itinerary