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Mahogany interiors, five-course meals and personal butler service will be available on several Amtrak routes starting this fall, as the national passenger railroad embarks on a new partnership with GrandLuxe Rail Journeys, formerly known as American Orient Express.

The companies have teamed up to attach seven special GrandLuxe cars to regularly scheduled Amtrak trains. More than 90 departures are scheduled from November to early January.

The new service, dubbed GrandLuxe Limited, will be available between Chicago and the San Francisco Bay area; Chicago and Los Angeles; and Washington and Miami. Limited trips are also scheduled from Washington to Chicago, Denver to San Francisco, Denver to Chicago and Chicago to Albuquerque.

The project marks the first time Amtrak will provide regularly scheduled private rail services.

Tickets for the two- and three-day GrandLuxe Limited trips will be priced from $789 to $2,499. In contrast, GrandLuxe's regular tours take seven to 10 days and run about $4,000 to $8,000 per person.

For the Amtrak partnership, GrandLuxe will split its train in three. Each segment will have a dining car and a lounge car and have room for 47 passengers, said Christina Messa, vice president of marketing for GrandLuxe. It will operate separately from the Amtrak portion of the train.

GrandLuxe passengers will not be able to get off at intermediate stops because of limitations such as platform length, though the companies said that could change.

Amtrak will operate the same number of cars it normally would, but in some cases it may have to add an extra locomotive, Amtrak spokesman Cliff Black said.

For information and reservations: GrandLuxe, www.grandluxerail.com, (800) 320-4206 or Amtrak Vacations, www.amtrak.com, (800) 872-7245.

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