TRAVEL IN STYLE

Luxury on the Rails, 1930 to 1970

Imagine an evening on a train when the lights dim just enough for brass to glow and the glass softens the edges of the landscape. From the 1930s to the 1970s, rail travel was a way of life, a small stage for everyday rituals where comfort followed a clear routine and elegance felt natural. Passengers stepped into carriages as if into salons, convinced that travel was not a pause but time to be cared for. This picture does not rest on nostalgia; it rests on a tangible tradition preserved in archives, museums, and the documents of the era.

The conductor runs a ticket across his palm as if keeping the evening’s rhythm, while in the dining car someone orders soup simply because it smells good. The journey becomes a small stage for good manners and gentle habits that lift an ordinary trip into a ritual.

Europe shaped this ritual through the culture of the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits, especially after 1919, when the Simplon route linked Paris with the Balkans and Istanbul via Milan and Venice. In the salon cars people spoke more softly, as if honoring another person’s time. Suitcases rested in the corner, and the leather armrest under the elbow restored a sense of order. No one hurried. Coffee cooled just enough for the conversation to last. Routes had their variations, yet the spirit stayed the same. Leaving the station felt like stepping onto a stage, and the carriages recalled private salons. In the Côte d’Azur Pullman cars master artisans such as René Lalique and René Prou worked in concert, so panels of lacquered wood, satin-finished glass with figurative motifs, and discreet metal accents turned the train into a moving work of interior art. Museums hold surviving elements and documented work on those very cars, which confirms the story in concrete terms. These details were not mere decoration. They invited the traveler in, like a well-run home.

Open the door to the dining car and the scene falls into place. You catch the scent of tea, hear the brief chime of silver, see porcelain laid as in grand hotels, and meet attentive staff who know that a meal on rails is more than a meal. Europe nurtured this culture through rules and a tone of service recorded in manuals and museum texts. Dinner had a sequence, a code, and a style.

Across the Atlantic, glamour moves at a faster pace. The window turns into a film frame, and every step into the car feels like a scene from a travel novel. The Santa Fe Super Chief links Chicago and Los Angeles and soon becomes a train people board with clear expectations of service. The red-and-silver Warbonnet devised by Leland Knickerbocker in GM’s Art and Color Section becomes one of the most recognizable paint schemes in American railroad history. Behind that look stands a tightly organized service system run by the Fred Harvey Company, with standardized meals, menus, and work rules raised to hotel level. The staff remembers faces and small wishes, so lunch often arrives as if it had been ordered the day before.

Embedded from YouTube: “Santa Fe Railway The Super Chief” by Backshop Rail Productions.

You can see how it worked in practice in Jack Delano’s color photographs from March 1943 in Albuquerque. In the images preserved by the Library of Congress, the locomotive gleams, the staff follows a precise sequence, and the service takes five minutes.

Evening settles gently. Tablecloths are perfectly pressed, and glasses give a brief, quiet chime. Between stations small solidarities appear. Someone holds a door, someone offers the window seat, and the journey moves like music that never breaks a thought.

After the war, Europe looked for new connections and clean design. Launched in 1957 as a first-class network, the Trans Europ Express set the tone for postwar optimism. The RAe TEE II brought an interior that still feels fresh today: a 2-plus-1 seating plan with more room, warm wood, soft lighting, a bar as a meeting point, and a restaurant with 54 seats. Whole biographies unfolded in those quiet hours on the rails. Someone prepared a presentation, someone studied a language, someone simply looked through the glass and recovered the patience that cities often take. Behind it stood the technical elegance of multi-system operation and a hushed ride; in front remained the promise of going from city to city in one sweep with a clearly defined standard.

“Proefrit Trans Europ Express-trein (1957)”. Polygoon Hollands Nieuws. Netherlands Institute for Sound & Vision. Embedded from YouTube.

Today we recognize that legacy in the way we sit down on a train and breathe more deeply. Some trains still keep the discipline of gracious gestures. A cup of coffee, a brief conversation, a lamp adjusted with care. It is enough for someone to straighten the table, almost without notice, for the journey to become time that belongs to a person again.

The end of an era in America has a precise date. On May 1, 1971, Amtrak began service and private intercity routes came under a single operator. Luxury did not vanish overnight, yet it yielded to the economics of the jet age and a different idea of efficiency. In Europe, the TEE kept the bar high for a while before high-speed trains and two-class layouts took the lead.

In that world the rules are visible: a ticket on the table beside silver cutlery, a conductor checking numbers, a compartment that smells of polish and fresh linen. On the Simplon route from 1919, dinner is served on porcelain commissioned by CIWL, panels signed by René Lalique catch the light, and service runs as in grand European hotels. On the Super Chief the locomotive wears the familiar warbonnet, the Fred Harvey team runs the dining car, and Delano’s photographs record the ritual from arrival to departure. On Trans Europ Express trains, seating is two plus one, the bar is the natural meeting point, and the RAe TEE II keeps a restaurant with 54 seats that works like a small hotel bistro in motion.

Here elegance is visible in the line for the dining car, in the dress code, and in the way the staff sets the table and clears the glasses before night. At the end of the day, what remains is the art of living: the way we travel, our habits at the table, the choice of seat, and the space of the carriage that turns the journey into an experience of time.