Train travel is so expensive these days, but £25,000? For that you get a couple of nights stay on board, with double bed, bathroom, sitting room, views down the track as it recedes into the distance and a rear balcony should you come over all Harry S. Truman.  

This is the master bedroom on The Chairman’s Train, puffing into action in July as the UK’s first fully private heritage train for hire. And yes, for £45,000 – a day – you and your 15 guests can have the whole thing, its dining carriage and many comfy rooms pulled by the locomotive of your choice, electric, diesel or steam. Steam certainly isn’t its only throwback either – with its wood paneling, leather armchairs and marble sinks, bar, pianist, chef and a dozen uniformed staff, mobile phones, sneakers and first name terms all start to seem like painfully incongruous intrusions from another, less refined time.  

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But that, one suspects, is precisely what Jeremy Hosking is aiming at: the good old days of strong tea and pink maps set on tracks, a reminder of what train travel used to be, even for the less well-heeled. This was when whistle and smoke, compartments and waiting rooms – replete with possibility –........

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