Luxury dining cars. Live piano music. Attentive footmen.

All they're missing is a dashing, Hitchcockian hero from the likes of "North by Northwest" onboard.

Beginning Dec. 18, Amtrak and GrandLuxe Rail Journeys will run a two-night luxury trip from Washington to Miami in an attempt to capture some of the glamour of the golden age of railroads.

The companies also are running routes between Chicago and Los Angeles and Chicago and San Francisco.

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Fares start at about $800, according to Jackie Johnson, vice president of sales for GrandLuxe, based in Evergreen, Colo.

In March, GrandLuxe will begin offering a seven-day tour with stops between Washington and New Orleans, starting at about $5,000.

The new tours will offer amenities like five-course meals, personal butler service and upscale cabins, Johnson said. There is even a piano player onboard.

If the rides catch on, they could be a revenue booster for perennially struggling Amtrak, which asked Congress for $1.53 billion for next year to continue functioning. Amtrak has never made money in its 36-year history.

The Washington-Miami route invokes the historic "Orange Blossom Special" route between New York and Miami, which was operated by the Seaboard Air Line Railway between the late 1920s and early 1950s, said Peter Claymore, senior vice president of the Washington chapter of the National Railway Historical Society. The organization organizes excursions using its own 1923 Pullman car, pulled by Amtrak trains.

"These were the airplanes of the day," Claymore said. "Primarily they were cruise vessels for southern vacationers."

They also were the primary means by which East Coast businessmen visited their families in the south, Claymore said.

The Chicago/San Francisco and Chicago/Los Angeles routes will begin in November, Amtrak spokeswoman Karino Romero said.

melissa.frederick@dcexaminer.com