TODAY'S train rides are often just a cramped carriage, a delayed service and a packet of peanuts, but now style might be returning to the rails with the rebirth of the Brighton Belle.

The 5BEL Trust has been working tirelessly for six years to fully renovate the “Rolls Royce” of trains, which was a favourite of celebrities such as Laurence Olivier and used to traverse the Brighton Mainline.

And the Trust states the train is now almost ready to take the rails again.

By next April they expect to be running three excursion services a week which will give modern train passengers the full experience from the glory days of rail – including comfort, style and a cooked meal.

The extravagant Brighton Belle service was introduced in 1931 as the flagship of the electrification project by Southern Railway – the train ran daily from 1933 to 1972 before being decommissioned due to its age.

The 5BEL Trust has so far invested nearly £6 million in charitable donations to restore the Brighton Belle and trustee Neil Marshall says he hopes the train will “capture the imagination of the city”.

He said: “It was luxurious but racy, the people who travelled were unusual, and Brighton in the thirties and forties was a place to live in a style not accepted in London.

“To me it has always been synonymous with Brighton itself – the train is gorgeous and it is very exciting to bring it back.”

He added: “Seeing it come together is very satisfying and you have to realise when we launched this project we had only limited expectation and thought we would not be able to find enough carriages.

“It is very important to electrification and heritage railway. We will be doing mainline trials and its return is just a few months away.”

The restoration work has been undertaken by a dedicated team in Chesterfield and the historic train will be housed in Eastleigh when not in use.

The biggest challenge faced by the team was bringing the train back up to safety standards and ensuring it can run beyond its originally designed speed to run alongside modern trains.

Mr Marshall said: “We cannot use volunteers, every single weld, nut and bolt and piece of strengthening work has been inspected by an independent body so we have to buy all that in – the team are specialists in restoring rolling stock.

“We have had many moments when we have been scratching our heads thinking ‘how do we resolve this?’

“A lot of the time it has been three steps forward and one back, but all the challenges have been met.”