One of the UK’s poshest trains will once again return to Derby next month, and this time it will be heading to Chesterfield too. The Northern Belle’s seven ornately-decorated 1930s-style Pullman carriages are set to roll into Derby Midland Station again on Tuesday, June 21.
Early bird trainspotters will be able to catch a glimpse of the private luxury train before it departs the Railway Terrace station at 7.30am and heads to Cardiff in a repeat of a journey featured on Channel 5’s World’s Most Scenic Railway Journeys programme.
It will beforehand pick passengers up from Chesterfield train station at 7am after the first pick-up stop at Sheffield at 6.20am. The train will arrive back in Derby at 10pm in the evening, Chesterfield at 10.30pm, before finally arriving back in Sheffield at 11pm to end the day trip to the Welsh capital.
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For the £370 ticket price, passengers will get a three-course bellini brunch as the train travels to the Principality. They can then enjoy a five-course dinner served with specially-selected wine on the way home.
On the Channel 5 show, TV and movie star Bill Nighy described the Northern Belle trip to Cardiff as a “a railway experience that harks back to the halcyon days of travel”. He told viewers that the champagne-sipping passengers had been “lapping up all that this luxury train has to offer”.
Businessman David Pitts, who bought the train from the Orient Express Group, said: “Cardiff is a beautiful city with lots of history and this trip was already one of our passengers’ favourites. But booking soared after Nighy raved over it on the Channel 5 programme.”
There will be another Northern Belle trip to Cardiff from both Derby and Chesterfield in July, as well as excursions to Berwick on Tweed, Lindisfarne, Llandudno, Winchester, Oxford and Blenheim Palace during the summer.
Those looking to find out more can visit the Northern Belle website here, or call 01270 899681.