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When it comes to making an entrance, few vehicles can show up the gleaming Orient Express Pullman as it enters the Venezia Santa Lucia train station with a sky-blue uniformed steward leaning comfortably out the door. Witnessing this is an event on par with watching the Concorde land at JFK. Heads turn, passers-by gawk. In Venice, where even in the winter months the crowds are a nimbus of backpackers and locals, the Pullman's power of persuasion can even bring Italy's conversational gesticulation to a near standstill. In this age of nostalgia, when something historic enters, you do your best to stand at attention.

Logic, however, says that the ever-increasing velocity of modern travel, combined with the rock-bottom ticket prices of low-budget European carriers such as Ryannair and Easyjet, should put an old, decorous dinosaur like the Orient Express out of business. With prestige rail projects such as bullet trains in Japan, TGVs in France, Deutsche Bahn's high-speed ICEs and the advent of magnetic Maglev trains, which made their debut in Shanghai last year and can attain speeds of 505 kilometres an hour, why would anyone set aside the cash and time to travel from Venice to London on a train that's been around for more than a century?

Because it's the Orient Express, that's why. Like the Concorde and the retired Queen Mary before it -- or even, for the more adventurous, the Trans-Siberian Express, which after 80 years is finally entirely electric -- the Orient Express has an aristocratic air about it. Even postmodernists who prefer their landscapes passing by at Mach speed cannot deny the iconic grandeur of the world's most luxurious train.

And trains are back. Give the French credit; their enormous investment in TGV rails over the past two decades has spurred on the rest of Europe to upgrade their infrastructures. No one flies from London to Paris any more, because it's easier, often cheaper and always more comfortable taking the Eurostar.

The same goes for the Thalys between Amsterdam and Paris and the ICE between Hamburg and Frankfurt. But in terms of sheer luxury and style, the Orient Express remains the crown jewel of rail travel.

The Venice Simplon Orient-Express, which runs between Venice and London, may be the parade horse of the Orient Express Group, but it is only one aspect of the company's business.

After expanding its portfolio gradually throughout the 1980s, in recent years the group has ventured more aggressively into luxury trains in the United Kingdom and Southeast Asia, five-star hotels such as the Cipriani in Venice, the Copacabana Palace in Rio and the salmon-tinted Lapa Palace in Lisbon, safaris in Botswana and river cruises in Myanmar.

As an indication of their customer demographics, they'll lease a private jet to get guests to wherever they need to go, as long as it bears the group's insignia.

More recently, the company has forayed into the upscale restaurant market by opening The Upstairs at the 21 Club on West 52nd Street in New York. Situated in a former speakeasy, the exclusive 32-seat restaurant featuring Erik Blauberg's haute American cuisine has been a hit among celebrities and their like.

In 2003, the company will also reopen one of Buenos Aires's most celebrated steakhouses, La Cabana. Not surprisingly, the group hopes to recreate the intimate atmosphere -- think French-rococo interior with open fireplaces and wall-mounted boar heads -- that at one time made this restaurant a favourite of Argentina's leisure class.

Perhaps its most interesting venture has yet to come. The company is looking into the possibility of introducing a first-class Orient Express line between Washington and New York that will offer luxury service on a more habitual basis. The idea might not be as far-fetched as it sounds; between the wars, the Orient Express built and operated thousands of carriages as luxury expresses across Europe. The route between New York and Washington is one of Amtrak's most profitable, and if the OE succeeds in launching the service, it will introduce a bit of European regality to Washingtonian diplomats.

A trip on the Orient Express from Venice to London, however, is, for most, a once-in-a-lifetime experience. The perky anticipation among rosy-cheeked Americans dressed in floral patterns and middle-aged Brits in tasselled loafers who congregated before the train in Venice said as much. Fortunately for me, there was also a modest number of young couples and lone wolves in more casual couture on the platform.

Bolstered by the economic bonanza of the 1990s that saw wealth distributed more evenly among the younger demographic, the Orient Express is no longer all honeymooners and septuagenarians -- its immaculately groomed chefs and art-deco aesthetic are also appealing to a younger crowd.

The Simplon-Orient-Express, introduced in 1919, was named after the 19-kilometre-long engineering feat through the Alps called the Simplon Tunnel, which facilitated the 56-hour journey from Paris to Constantinople, now Istanbul. The Orient Express had existed for nearly half a century before this, but the European beneficiaries of the post-First World War economic boom choose the Simplon-Orient-Express as its symbol of Roaring Twenties prosperity. This éclat stuck for the greater part of the 20th century, during which time the Simplon line became the preferred method for discerning passengers traversing the continent.

By 1977, with society ever more fixated by the advent of air travel, the Orient Express was a mere shadow of its former self. A Sotheby's auction held in Monte Carlo that year for the purpose of selling off the five carriages featured in the film Murder on the Orient Express was generally seen as the end of the era of luxury train travel. In a way, it was; air travel was both faster and more glamorous; a dining car on the ground simply couldn't compete with a Boeing 747 luxury lounge at 35,000 feet. But of the five carriages auctioned off that day, American entrepreneur James Sherwood was able to get his hands on two. And Sherwood wanted the Orient Express to survive.

It took Sherwood nearly five years to locate the remaining rolling stock and to renovate and resurrect the Simplon-Orient-Express as the Venice Simplon Orient-Express, or VS-O-E, a luxurious, charmingly anachronistic novelty in the jet age. Unveiled with much fanfare in 1982, today it is a resort on wheels, a theatrical alternative to flying from London to Venice via Paris and Innsbruck.

Once aboard the VS-O-E, it took me a few hours to adjust to my role. Only when the train had begun to dart through the tunnels of Italy's Dolomites was I truly at ease with the pre-Depression pageantry: the restored marquetry interiors, the elaborate mosaic bathroom floors and the VS-O-E's signature salmon, camel, pink and leaf colour palette.

The train's layout is based entirely on original artifacts, from the reproduced chairs, cutlery and china to the bottom-heavy vases (to keep them from tipping) and photogenic fin-de-siècle livery of the hospitality-educated stewards. At no time during the journey did I question the authenticity; if the stewards and chefs and managers were playing a role, they never let down their guard. And social etiquette required that I play along. Guests are encouraged to arrive in festive dress and don their very best behaviour. It's self-deception, but of the most willing kind.

Meanwhile, the Alpine landscape moved by slowly, at times excruciatingly so. But the stewards and chefs kept us busy. After a brief introduction, my cabin attendant arrived, introduced himself, showed me how to lock the door, turn on the fan, man the reading light and push the black button that would summon him on a moment's notice.

For lunch, there were two sittings, one at 11:45 a.m. and one at 1:15 p.m., followed by high tea at 4:15. During a brief stop at Innsbruck, passengers were encouraged to take a refreshing stroll down the platform. A few left the train for good; discerning Austrian and Italian businessmen know the OE is the most comfortable way to get from Italy to Austria. Well-dressed passengers asked the stewards to strike poses for antiquity, for families at home, and to blow the high-pitched whistles for video purposes. By now I was used to the festival atmosphere, the gawking faces of passers-by only enhancing the feeling that we were part of something special.

Dinner is served at 7 and 9 p.m., apéritifs and pre-prandial cocktails in the phenomenal Bar Car from early evening on. The brochure had advised to dress snazzy, but nothing prepared me for the black ties and sequined cocktail gowns I encountered upon entry. During the day, the Bar Car was a dark, musky escape from the confines of my cabin; in the evening it was The Great Gatsby revisited. Cigars abounded, while garrulous piano men and bartenders with slicked back hair poured stiff, forgotten drinks into insignia crystal glasses.

Like in the best luxury hotels, everything on the train is stamped with the curvaceous VS-O-E insignia. And like anything remotely iconic, it's all for sale: silk scarves (with map design depicting the London to Venice route of the legendary train), pillboxes, cashmere teddy bears, an Ameline calf leather conductor's bag, antimacassars, hand-blown French crystal, ties, umbrellas, towels, pens and enamel and brass letter openers. After 20 minutes of looming in the gift shop shadows, I became convinced this diminutive on-board store ranked among the most profitable shops per square metre on the planet.

After an elaborate three-course meal and a few more drinks in the crowded Bar Car, the manager allowed me to peek into the VS-O-E Golden Book, a tome dedicated to the myriad of regulars and celebrities who have found themselves on board. In a world of Hollywood stars, it is a monument to even the VS-O-E's aspirational status. There were caricatures by Phil Collins, a drawing by Peter Gabriel, a doodle by Francis Ford Coppola, a succinct note by David Gilmour (Pink Floyd), a thank you from J.K. Rowling, a Samantha Fox signature. More interesting, however, were the faceless regulars who signed both by name and by number of VS-O-E journeys. I tallied 62 trips by a certain John Leander, thinking, Who is this man?

In the morning, after a stroll through the train, I returned to a made-up room and a breakfast of fresh croissants (picked up that morning in Basel, Switzerland) and cappuccino served in a weighty silver canister. Eventually, the silent wheat fields of the French interior gave way to the grey outskirts of the French capital. Aware that I would be jumping ship in Paris, the bright-eyed steward presented me with a bar bill that was more reasonable than expected and then carried my luggage to the door, just as we were pulling into Gare l'Est.

"It's a shame you're leaving us in Paris," he said. "You'll miss the lobster lunch and the ferry across the Channel." When I stepped down onto the platform, a crowd of onlookers peered over my head and took a picture of my cabin steward, who smiled obligingly. Their tennis shoes welcomed me back to the 21st century. It had only been 24 hours, but I felt like I had been gone for a very long while.

John Weich is editor-at-large at Wallpaper*
If you go

Prices start at $2,954 one-way, $4,280 return. Departure dates are on Wednesdays and Saturdays.

For details about various train routes and prices, hotels, cruises and private jet service, or to book a trip online, visit the Web site at
http://www.orient-express.com.

For information about accommodations, restaurants and events in London, visit http://www.londontown.com.

For tourist information about Paris, visit http://www.visit-paris.com.

For tourist information about Venice, visit http://www.venetia.it.