Crossing eight time zones and spanning two continents, the Trans-Siberian is a king among railway lines. Stretching from Moscow to Vladivostok, the 5,800-mile journey was – until relatively recently – a byword for discomfort, and many of the interesting town and cities en-route were closed to tourists.

Today, thanks to an enterprising British company which specialises in long-distance luxury train tours, the miles can be lapped up in style. Altrincham-based GW Travel runs its own Golden Eagle train along the route, with an 820-mile detour into Mongolia added in for good measure. Billed as a “Voyage of a Lifetime”, this is truly the ultimate land-cruise, passing Siberian scenes which have hardly changed since the line was completed nearly 100 years ago.

First stop, Irkutsk
Unable to spare the full 15 days required for the west-bound departure from Vladivostok, Russia’s biggest port city on the Pacific Ocean, my wife and I joined the tour party at Irkutsk – roughly halfway, in terms of miles. Within minutes of landing, we met our fellow passengers for a four-course lunch featuring Omul, a fish unique to nearby Lake Baikal.

Then we were off to a museum commemorating the Decembrists, aristocrats exiled to Siberia after a failed revolution in 1825 who gave the city its title “The Paris of Siberia” due to the distinctive wooden houses they built. A private concert with accompanying Champagne gave us a foretaste of things to come.

By now, we were dying to see the Golden Eagle train itself, built just two years ago at a cost of £12.8m to accommodate up to 120 passengers in 12 fully en-suite sleeping cars. For this start-of-the-season run, the train was pared down to just eight carriages to accommodate a small 17-strong party of mostly retired professionals from the US, Canada, Australia, Portugal and the UK.

Tour manager Tatyana Kolesnikova welcomed us onboard to our Gold Class compartment, which included an en-suite shower and toilet, DVD player and air-conditioning. By day, the cabin has seating and a table. By night, it’s transformed by one of the two attendants – on call 24 hours a day – into a sleeping compartment with a wide lower berth and smaller berth above.  With a toot from the electric loco hauling the train, we rumbled out of Irkutsk station and were soon snaking our way across the Siberian wilderness.

This was train travel as it should be. We buzzed the attendant for afternoon tea and chocolates, and sat back to relax before dinner in the restaurant car.

In the evening, we met our fellow passengers in the bar car, which acts as the social hub of the train. Most were seasoned travellers, some spending up to six months a year away from home and combining the rail trip with visits to other neighbouring countries. All of them said the highlights of the trip so far were a national park in Mongolia, and travelling the cliff-hugging line around Lake Baikal – the deepest lake in the world, holding 20% of the world’s fresh water.

After a night’s intermittent sleep – it takes time to adjust to the jolts and rhythm of rail-travel – we had breakfast and then attended a series of events in the bar car. First was a fascinating talk from Tatyana on life during and after Communism, then came a bleak film about the problems facing Russians adjusting to the post-Soviet era.  After lunch was a Russian class for the adventurous, tackling the Cyrillic alphabet, with a further film on the rise of the Russian oligarchs.