Long-distance rail travel is intoxicatingly romantic and much more sustainable than flying. But when our lives are so busy, and our time and money so precious, it can sometimes be hard to justify taking the slower, more scenic route. However, these exciting new train journeys for 2025 and beyond might just convince you to give it a try.
From swanky sleepers to dynamic first-of-their-kind engineering feats, click through this gallery for the world's best new and upcoming rail routes...
This sprawling itinerary from tour operator Railbookers promises the most unforgettable adventure for train lovers. Covering 59 days, 12 countries and four continents, this eight-week itinerary sees passengers experience seven of the world’s most lavish trains in one trip: the Rocky Mountaineer in Canada (pictured); the Belmond Royal Scotsman; the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express; the Maharajas' Express in India; the La Dolce Vita Orient Express; Rovos Rail in South Africa; and the freshly revived Eastern & Oriental Express.
Departing on 3 September 2025 from Vancouver, the epic overland expedition also includes stays in some of the world’s finest hotels, such as the iconic Fairmont Banff Springs (pictured) in Canada and The Victoria Falls Hotel in Zimbabwe. With accommodation, luggage transfers, excursions and most meals included, it should come as no surprise that all of this comes at a cost – with prices starting from £96,925 ($129,538) per person.
Get ready for a vintage adventure on Vietnam’s upcoming Revolution Express, a heritage line due to launch in 2025. This pair of steam engines, the last of their kind in the country, will chug from Hue, the former royal capital, to Da Nang (pictured), passing through the breathtaking Hai Van Pass. The trains are a nostalgic throwback to the 1960s, with carriages styled with gold accents and mahogany finishes.
The scenic route showcases the region's coastal beauty, with a stop-off in the village of Lang Co, where passengers can enjoy beach views. At each station, guests will be treated to themed dining and entertainment, and in Hue the station will host a regal restaurant inspired by the city’s imperial history. A military brass band will also welcome your arrival at each stop.
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Things might be speeding up at London’s Eurostar terminal (pictured). A new partnership between London St Pancras Highspeed and Eurotunnel could see international rail links from the UK to mainland Europe turbocharged by 2030.
The aim is to triple the station’s passenger capacity and tempt new train operators to rival Eurostar’s current monopoly. That means more routes, better timetable coordination and the possibility of bringing pets on board.
So where could your next direct train from London take you? Frankfurt in Germany and Switzerland's Zurich are among the cities being floated, along with a potential new line snaking as far south as Milan (pictured).
According to research published by London St Pancras Highspeed, emissions savings could rival 60,000 short-haul flights per year, so the new plan aims to promote rail as the greenest way to reach Europe from the UK. London’s international terminal has long had room to grow.
Brightline West is gearing up to be one of America’s most exciting new rail links: a 218-mile (351km), all-electric, high-speed route connecting Las Vegas (pictured) with Greater Los Angeles, roughly along the Interstate 15 corridor. With trains zipping along at over 200 miles per hour (322km/h), the journey will take just over two hours – about half the time it takes by car.
The line will connect Vegas to Rancho Cucamonga (pictured), where travellers can hop onto LA’s Metrolink network. Construction began in 2024 and it is slated to open in 2028 — just in time for the Los Angeles Olympics. The goal? To offer a fast, sustainable alternative to gridlocked highways and prove that the future of US travel isn’t just in the skies or on the roads.
Spain’s national rail operator Renfe is upping the stakes in Europe’s cross-border train game with a new high-speed route connecting Barcelona and Toulouse – and throwing in 15 scenic stops along the way. Already experienced with high-speed intercity links, Renfe recently carried over a million passengers on its Spain-France routes in just 18 months. Now it’s eyeing up a fresh slice of southwest France.
The journey – which would take around three and a half hours door to door – will carry passengers through Catalan highlights like Girona and Figueres, before stops at French favourites like Perpignan and Carcassonne. The launch of the route has been delayed thanks to bureaucratic hurdles associated with operating in France (it was supposed to launch in April 2025) but it is hoped that the route will debut soon.
After years of anticipation (and a tragic delay), Serbia’s high-speed railway from Novi Sad (pictured) to Subotica is finally set to open – perhaps by July 2025. The new 67-mile (108km) stretch is part of a grander plan to transport travellers between the capitals of Serbia and Hungary (Belgrade and Budapest) in just three hours by 2026. The Belgrade-Novi Sad leg was completed back in 2022, but disaster struck when a concrete canopy at Novi Sad’s main station collapsed in 2024, killing 16 people.
Once trains are whizzing north to the city of Subotica (pictured) on the Hungarian border, this once-dreamy corner of the Balkans could become a rail travel hot ticket. The revamped line has been under construction since late 2021 and is part of a wider European project called Corridor X, established to reduce travel times and improve connectivity between western and southeastern Europe.
While the legendary Venice Simplon-Orient-Express (pictured) is nothing new, it now has a trendy younger sister: the Orient Express La Dolce Vita, branded around the romanticised notion of the Italian 'sweet life'.
Having finally hit the rails in 2025 – two years later than originally planned – this new iteration of the historic locomotive is aimed at more design-conscious travellers, swapping out Belle Epoque maximalism for mid-century curves and retro prints. La Dolce Vita's sleek fleet features luxe wood-lined cabins, live music and a restaurant serving haute cuisine by a Michelin-starred chef.
As you might expect from the Orient Express dynasty, a trip on La Dolce Vita isn't aimed at commuters. Offering exquisite service on eight different itineraries that last one to two nights, the stylish sojourns sweep through Rome, Venice, Siena (pictured) and the Italian Alps, as well as Portofino, Matera and Sicily (via one of Europe’s last passenger train ferries). Future plans involve expanding the train's reach internationally to Paris, Istanbul and Split in Croatia.
The Indian Pacific (pictured) has been rattling across Australia from Sydney to Perth since 1970, but in 2025 this legendary transcontinental journey is getting an eagerly anticipated spruce up. The vast 2,704-mile (4,352km) route is being stretched out by an extra day, with a handful of fresh stops and experiences thrown in as options to make the ride even more memorable.
There’s a slap-up dinner amid the scenic environs of South Australia’s Barossa Valley (pictured), a walking tour of the historic silver-mining town of Broken Hill and a wander through the almost-ghost-town of Cook – pretty much the only thing interrupting the flatness of the Nullarbor Plain. The journey boasts the longest section of straight railway track in the world, so you’ll have plenty of time to appreciate the horizon.
Expected to start welcoming passengers in summer 2025, a new Amtrak route between New Orleans, Louisiana and Mobile, Alabama – called The Mardi Gras – will soon cruise along the American South's gorgeous Gulf Coast (pictured). The train will also stop at four stations in Mississippi: Bay St Louis, Gulfport, Biloxi and Pascagoula. It will mark the return of passenger train services to the Gulf Coast for the first time since 2005.
The Mardi Gras promises to channel some of its namesake’s parade-day energy into rail travel – though you’re more likely to catch views of marshy seashores than flying beads. Intended to spotlight local culture while plugging into Amtrak’s broader network, the twice-daily service will offer travellers a laid-back alternative to long-distance driving.
Enjoy these amazing historic photos of America's early railroads
If you've enjoyed the European Sleeper service between Brussels, Amsterdam and Berlin, you’ll be intrigued to hear that the provider has tentative plans to add other routes to its roster – including one connecting Amsterdam with Barcelona. Originally set to launch in spring 2025, the service has now been delayed until 2026 with a possible further delay to 2027. Still, if it does go ahead, it sounds like it’ll be worth the wait.
The proposed route between Amsterdam and Barcelona (pictured) is slated to include stops in Montpellier, Perpignan, Figueres and Girona, though it is not yet known exactly how long the complete end-to-end journey would be. One thing we can say for sure is that the views from your window would be spectacular. Meandering past the evolving scenery of at least four countries, it's almost a waste to spend large parts of the journey asleep.
They've been the missing piece in the European railway puzzle for a long time, but now – gradually – the Baltic states are at last getting connected with speedy train services. Rail Baltica is one of the region's largest ever infrastructure projects, and will link cities like Warsaw, Vilnius, Kaunas, Riga and Tallinn (as well as Helsinki indirectly and Berlin by night train) when the 541-mile (870km) route is completed in 2030. The idea has been more than 30 years in the making, since the former Soviet Union countries gained independence in the 1990s.
Eventually replacing the long-distance buses and unsustainable flights that travellers currently rely on to hop between Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, Rail Baltica will be a quiet, fully electric fleet with a colour scheme designed to reflect the sun, sea and sand of the Baltic Coast. While there’s still a long way to go before we can enjoy this particular route in its entirety, there are hopes that some sections will be ready to transport passengers by 2028.
In November 2022, the vision for an advanced high-speed rail link between the Portuguese cities of Porto (pictured) and Lisbon and Vigo in Galicia, northwest Spain, was laid out by the Portuguese government.
While the existing fast service between the country's capital and second cities takes just under three hours, this new proposal could see the journey time more than halved to one hour and 15 minutes. Extending the route to Vigo will allow passengers to travel the length of Iberia's Atlantic coast at speeds of around 186 miles per hour (300km/h).
Construction on the Porto-Lisbon-Vigo route started in 2024, but won't be completed until the early 2030s. This is all part of a wider infrastructure overhaul to Portugal's rail network, which will also include new local district connections and a crossing over the Tagus river (pictured), ultimately creating high-speed links from 10 of the country's main cities. In its entirety, the project is estimated to be completed by 2050.
Taking inspiration from the Al Boraq (pictured) – Africa's first express train, which runs along the coast of Morocco from Tangier to Casablanca – the African Union is in the process of laying the groundwork for a speedy, continent-wide rail system of epic proportions. Known as the African Integrated High-Speed Railway Network, the megaproject is supposed to open in its first phase by 2033, with more connections to be added by 2063.
Three pilot schemes have been selected: the first routes to open will be Dar es Salaam in Tanzania to Kigali in Rwanda; Kampala in Uganda (pictured) to Bujumbura in Burundi; and Pretoria in South Africa to Walvis Bay in Namibia, via Botswana's capital Gaborone. The ultimate aim is to provide Africa’s 16 landlocked countries with better access to major ports and neighbouring nations, increasing connectivity and economic development across the continent.
It was first mentioned in theory back in 2018, but the United Arab Emirates’ plans to build an undersea railway to India might be gathering steam. The bold project could connect the shimmering metropolis of Dubai with bustling Mumbai (pictured) in just a couple of hours, with proposed speeds of up to 621 miles per hour (1,000km/h). If it comes to fruition, the proposal would push boundaries even compared to Dubai's most ambitious construction projects.
It may sound like an audacious concept, but at its heart it's a variation of what the Channel Tunnel between the UK and France has been doing since 1994. No timeline has yet been given for the project, but we certainly shouldn’t expect it any time soon. Conceiving and creating the world’s fastest land-based public transport – and then putting it in a large tunnel – would be no mean feat.
Read on for the world's most beautiful and affordable train journeys