Northern Belle: Luxury train featured on Most Scenic Railway Journeys TV show set to return to Sheffield

The Northern Belle featured twice on Channel 5’s The World’s Most Scenic Railway Journeys programme last year and was described by film star Bill Nighy as the ‘Grand Duchess of luxury train travel’.

The train – once part of the iconic Orient Express group – departed from Sheffield earlier this month on a slap-up day trip to Bath.

Now it’s due back in the city, where it will pick up passengers for Cardiff on a journey Nighy described as ‘a railway experience that harks back to the halcyon days of travel’.

The Cardiff journey which featured on TV will be repeated from Sheffield, Chesterfield and Derby on Tuesday, June 21, with pampered passengers boarding over a red carpet before being handed a welcome glass of champagne and tucking into a three-course brunch on the picturesque journey into Wales.

They will get to visit Cardiff Castle with the Marquess of Bute’s Gothic Mansion before another champagne reception on the train and a slap-up five-course dinner on the way home.

Huddersfield businessman David Pitts said the Cardiff trip had always been a passenger favourite but bookings had soared since it featured on TV.

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The Northern Belle will make another Cardiff trip from Sheffield, Doncaster and Chesterfield in July, with other journeys from Sheffield to Berwick on Tweed, Lindisfarne, Winchester, Oxford and Blenheim Palace.

And on October 29, there will be another steam-hauled run over the Settle-Carlisle line like that featured on Channel 5.

Fares start at £260. For more details, phone 01270 899681 or visit northern belle.co.uk.