The new train, called The Golden Eagle, has larger cabins than those currently available on the trans-Siberian route, with ensuite bathrooms with power showers, underfloor heating and plasma televisions with DVD players. It has been financed by a Cheshire-based rail travel specialist, GW Travel, and a Russian company, Zircon Service, at a cost of £12.6m.

The 12 sleeping carriages are arranged into two classes – Gold is larger but otherwise offers the same amenities as Silver Class. In addition to the sleeping carriages there are two restaurants, a bar and a lounge where lectures are held.

The train offers one or two departures a month on fixed 14-night itineraries between Moscow and Vladivostok. The first departure from Moscow is on May 6, with the return leg leaving Vladivostok on June 18.

The train travels throughout the night and bar three days spent onboard, days are spent on excursions, which include museum visits and tours, such as a private viewing of the Kremlin.

The 21-carriage train will offer the 14-night trips from £3,895, which includes excursions, meals, drinks and two lectures on the Russian environment or culture, but not flights. For those with deep pockets, the train can be hired in its entirety for bespoke journeys, which costs from around £250,000 for one week, including all meals and departing out of Moscow. For details go to www.gwtravel.co.uk, and for information on private hire of the train go to www.trainchartering.com.

Comment by Steve Keenan, Travel Editor, Times Online: Have you seen the photo of this train - red bouncy seats, swirly carpets and tassles? Whatever happened to the overriding principles of riding the Trans-Siberian: discomfort and boredom?

It's outrageous that a train company should be allowed to do this, giving travellers the choice between a power shower on the posh train and a right shower on the Trans-Siberian. For years, I've dined out on tales of tow of us surviving three days on the TS with only a packet of biscuits and fours can of Chinese lager - apart, that is, from greasy mounds of meat shoved in through train windows at the few stops along the way.

For years I've recounted the tales of being with my girlfriend as the train chugged across the Russian steppes for five days. Yes, yes I know it sounds romantic - but not necessarily when no-one else on the train speaks English and the endless tundra is all there is to look at in summer. It was not Dr Zhivago.

I still dream of Omsk, Tomsk and Novosibirsk, the only places to break the tedium. So what do you mean by stopping the train during the day for lectures and excursions, no doubt with packed picnics and bubbly to boot? Since when was that the point of the Trans Siberian, instead of a long distance transfer of 500 drunken Russians and bored foreigners?

Would I pay nearly four grand to get across Russia instead, with a choice of restaurants, a bar and plasma screen? Of course I wouldn't - because then I'd have no stories, no powerful memories of time and space crossing Siberia, no pleasure in studying Cryllic timetables and no enduring affection for a can of Tsingtao beer. And I'd be saving around £3,500, enough to do it all over again, seven times more.

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