In December 1996, Queensland Rail announced it would enter a 90/10 joint venture with Orient-Express Hotels to operate a luxury tourist train between Kuranda (near Cairns) and Sydney.

[11][13] Twenty of the carriages remained in storage at the North Ipswich Railway Workshops, with Queensland Rail stating an Orient Express holding company owned them, while an Orient Express Hotels manager in London said they were still owned by Queensland Rail.

[15] In February 2016, the carriages were moved from the Workshops Rail Museum at Ipswich to the Port of Brisbane for shipment to Peru for use by the Orient Express Hotels' successor, Belmond, and its partly-owned railroad company PeruRail.

[16] The train entered service in May 2017 as the Belmond Andean Explorer, carrying passengers from Cusco to Puno (at the Lake Titicaca) and to Arequipa.

The entire train layout was designed similar to the Eastern & Oriental Express, but with a different interior style.