Saudi Arabia’s dream train to chug across the desert at $4,000 a night

Paolo Barletta, a dapper Italian railroad impresario, is channeling the spirit of the storied Orient Express and Fellini’s La Dolce Vita to bring luxury train travel to Saudi Arabia.

Starting late next year, his “Dream of the Desert” line will take passengers on an 800-mile journey across the kingdom’s dune-filled landscapes for between $4,000 and $28,000 a night, Barletta, CEO of Rome-based Arsenale Group, told The Circuit in Riyadh.

That shouldn’t be a problem for his target clientele of wealthy Saudis and free-spending international visitors looking for thrills as the once-secluded Gulf state keeps rolling out new tourist attractions.

“People here are spending crazy amounts of money to go to the Red Sea, to go to AlUla, to go to the Aseer region. So why not on a train?” Barletta, 39, said on Tuesday in an interview outside the King Abdulaziz International Convention Center.

Dressed in a grey double-breasted suit with purple polka-dotted tie and a white pocket handkerchief, the 39-year-old chief of his family-owned firm was escorting Saudi cabinet ministers and billionaire corporate executives onto a mock-up coach for the new line set up outside this week’s Future Investment Initiative conference.

The Dream of the Desert luxury train, now being assembled in Italy, evokes a gilded vision of Arabian travel, with interiors conceived by architect and interior designer Aline Asmar d’Amman, blending Italian style, Saudi heritage and the elegance of Europe’s Orient Express. Each coach features plush sleeper cabins with private bathrooms, marble-accented dining cars serving regional cuisine and lounges dressed in brass, walnut, and desert-hued fabrics.

“So we are a vertically integrated, supply-chain company where we engineer, manufacture and operate our own trains,” Barletta said. “The train cars are being made now in our factory in Puglia. They’ll be shipped to Saudi Arabia in Spring 2026 and be operative from the end of the year.”

Saudi Arabia is advancing four of the world’s largest tourism developments as part of its Vision 2030 plan. The $500 billion NEOM project anchors the push with a high-tech city and luxury destinations on the Red Sea. The $20 billion Red Sea Project is building eco-resorts across more than 90 islands, while Qiddiya, near Riyadh, is a $9 billion entertainment hub featuring theme parks and sports venues. Rounding out the effort is Diriyah Gate, a $63 billion heritage and hospitality complex transforming the birthplace of the Saudi state into a global cultural and leisure destination.

Once delivered, the train will feature 31 private cabins and two presidential suites, accommodating a maximum of 66 guests. Guests will have access to two restaurant cars offering a choice between authentic Saudi cuisine and international menus with Italian fusion influences, all “curated to a Michelin-level standard,” according to an Arsenale press release. A central Majlis lounge will provide space for socializing and relaxation.

While pricing has not yet been formally announced, Barletta said it would be similar to Arsenale’s La Dolce Vita Orient Express line, with its Fellini-inspired 60’s-style interiors, where tickets start at 3,500 euros ($4,000) per person per night, based on double occupancy. The top-of-the-line suites on the European route go for 25,000 euros a night.

Dream of the Desert will offer one- and two-night trips from Riyadh to the Al-Jawf station on the northern Saudi-Jordan border. Barletta said Arsenale will spend about $65 million on the Dream of the Desert project as part of a partnership with Saudi Arabia Railways and several government departments. It also has contracts to build luxury train lines in Egypt along the Nile and in Uzbekistan.

Saudi Transport Minister Saleh bin Nasser Al-Jasser said he was impressed after a walk-through on the model train car.

“It shows that different sectors within the economy – the transport and logistics, the tourism, the culture – working together to bring and facilitate services like this with the private sector is testimony that Saudi Arabia is very attractive to investment,” he said.

As for the pricing, he sees no obstacle.

“Obviously, it is designed to attract the high end of the market, but there are also services that attract different levels of people… priced at a few dollars,” he said. “There are different services that cater to all.”

Ackman sees Gaza truce easing Saudi path to Abraham Accords

Milling among the investors crowding the gilded hallways of the Future Investment Initiative conference in Riyadh, hedge fund magnate Bill Ackman expressed confidence that Saudi Arabia is moving closer to establishing formal links with Israel.

Ackman, founder of New York-based Pershing Square Capital Management, told The Circuit on Tuesday that he sees the current ceasefire in Gaza easing concerns in the Middle East about joining the 2020 Abraham Accords that normalized Israel’s ties with the UAE, Bahrain and Morocco.

“I think it’ll be in the relative short term,” Ackman said in an interview at the King Abdulaziz International Conference Center, where some 9,000 registrants are attending the conference. “I think there’s going to be a major peace dividend coming out of recent positive developments in the resolution of the Israeli-Gaza situation.”

Ackman, 59, whose personal fortune is estimated by Bloomberg at $8.4 billion, bought a nearly 5% stake in the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange last year with his wife Neri Oxman. He said he has also invested in Israeli venture capital funds for the last seven years or so.

Ackman was invited to the conference, often referred to as “Davos in the Desert,” to speak on Tuesday’s panel on geoeconomics, sharing the stage with JPMorgan Chase’s Jamie Dimon, BlackRock’s Larry Fink and Qualcomm’s Cristiano Amon. He said he was also meeting with other business people in the Gulf and talking about the potential of Israel’s regional integration.

“The only thing holding it back, in my view, was geopolitical risk,” Ackman said. “Investors don’t like geopolitical risk. They don’t like terrorism. They don’t like uncertainty.”

If conditions continue in a positive direction, Ackman said the Middle East at large will draw more foreign capital, a key goal of Saudi Arabia amid declining oil prices.

“As uncertainty goes down, as terrorists get set back, as peace deals get made, as the Abraham Accords expand, I think I’m very bullish for the region,” he said.

Dina Powell McCormick, meanwhile, an investment banker and former Deputy U.S. National Security Advisor during President Donald Trump’s first term, told the conference during a panel discussion that the Abraham Accords have played an important role in the Middle East’s economic development over the past five years.

The Israeli-Arab agreement also paved the way for a growing coalition of Arab and Muslim states that announced their support for the U.S.-brokered ceasefire in Gaza and joint international efforts to rebuild the wartorn territory, said Powell McCormick, a former senior Goldman Sachs executive who is now Vice Chairman and President of Global Client Services at BDT & MSD Partners, a U.S. merchant bank.

“I think it’s because, in many ways, the seeds were planted… not just by the United States, but over 50 countries, again, from Egypt and Jordan, the Emiratis, the Qataris, the Turks, the Pakistanis,” Powell McCormick continued. “This is remarkable.”

Powell McCormick, 52, who was born in Egypt before her parents moved to Dallas, Tex., said Saudi Arabia and its neighbors are exercising broad global influence on a scale that could not have been foreseen a decade ago.

“It would have been hard to imagine that this kingdom and this region of the world is now the dominant source of capital for innovation, the dominant source of capital for the change that we’re witnessing in every industry, artificial intelligence, biotech, robotics, longevity,” Powell McCormick said.