A visit to Victoria train station is usually one fraught with anxiety and a sense of impending doom. Unless you’re lucky enough to be taking the Belmond British Pullman, rather than the 18.35 to Brighton. Pullman luxury trains have been around since 1874 – and were at the height of their popularity in the 1920s and 1930s – but went out of service in 1972. In the 1980s, high end hotel company Belmond began purchasing and restoring these endlessly lovely vintage carriages and have put on regular scenic services from their base in Victoria ever since, as well running the lavish Royal Scotsman and – as of July 2025 – the Britannic Explorer, England and Wales’ first luxury sleeper train. We hopped on the Belmond British Pullman to experience the train firsthand.
I arrive at 10.30am-ish on a Friday morning and head directly to platform two, where London’s loveliest train is idling on the tracks, bringing some serious vintage glamour to an otherwise soul-suckingly dreary station. Everyone on this platform seems to be in a much better mood than the rest of the Victoria commuters on a cold December morning.
Setting foot aboard the classic, cream-coloured train, we are shown to our seats and served mulled wine in gorgeous china teacups. We’re here for (not in a Gen Z way) the festive lunch service, which runs throughout November and December and involves a slap-up meal and a trip around the Kentish countryside and coastline. It takes five hours, while you lounge around in extremely comfy art deco armchairs and feel extremely smug about your life choices. When the mulled wine runs out, it’s time for champagne. Drunk before lunch? On the British Pullman it’s basically mandatory.
We’re riding in the Minerva carriage from 1927, which we’re told was one of Winston Churchill’s faves and also helped to ferry people from Dover to London for Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation. Like many other Pullman carriages, it was named after a mythological goddess. And when they ran out of those, the people at Pullman started naming the train cars after their wives; hence the presence of Audrey, Vera and Gwen. As if to prove the star-spangled nature of the British Pullman, one of the train guards whips out a photo of his favourite passenger. It’s only Nelson Mandela!
A visit to the loo isn’t normally a highlight of train travel, but on the British Pullman it’s an event in itself. The Minerva loos feature an incredible tiled floor mural of the eponymous goddess of wisdom (almost too nice to stand on tbh), as well as rich mahogany pannelling and a vintage toilet. It also smells fabulous. We’d spend all day in here if that a) wasn’t a deeply weird thing to do and b) we didn’t have an even cosier seat to get back to.
The British Pullman runs throughout the year, celebrating various seasonal events. There are afternoon teas, day trips to Bath, York and Oxford and murder mysteries to satisfy the Agatha Christie-heads. Our festive lunch incorporates a five course slap-up Christmas meal complete with baby blue Belmond crackers which are (spoiler alert) filled with classy embroidered tree ornaments, as well as a yule log, cheese course and turkey roast dinner.
As much as we love Minerva, we’re gagging to have a look at the others. Snooping here is encouraged, and we wobble our way through the other 10 carriages, including the aforementioned Audrey and Vera - who are (though we don’t want to objectify them) absolute babes.
If you’re thinking, ‘this all sounds very Wes Anderson’, well, you’d be correct. In fact, the whimsical film director (and self-confessed train geek) is such a fan of the British Pullman train that he actually helped re-design the green and mahogany interior of the 1950s-era Cygnus carriage in 2021 and made it look even more Wes Anderson-y than it did already.
The route takes us all around Kent, and we spy the likes of Canterbury Cathedral, Margate’s distinctive Arlington House tower block and more ‘10 Foot’ graffiti tags than we can count.
Just before 4pm, we roll back into Victoria, with normal trains ruined for us forever.
Prices for festive lunch on the Belmond British Pullman start at £535.
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