West Coast Mainline passengers will be offered 20- to 30-minute opportunities to play the latest Nintendo DS games, through the partnership with the console manufacturer.
A trial, in which brand ambassadors will walk through train carriages offering samples of Nintendo games, will roll out in the coming weeks.
Travel- and event-booking website Lastminute.com will also offer hand massages on Virgin Trains' flagship London to Manchester route, to promote its spa break packages.
As well as improving the prospect of long train journeys for travellers, the activity is intended to boost sales for Virgin Trains' brand partners.
Virgin Trains' sales and marketing director, Sarah Copley, said the company was looking to tie up with further brands that can ‘add value' to a passenger's journey time.
However, she added that she was keen to avoid creating a ‘pushy sales environment', and insisted that brands would be invited on board Virgin Trains only if they were a strong fit.
The brand-partnership strategy will be central to Virgin Trains' 2010 marketing activity.
This will aim to encourage consumers to switch from private cars to travelling by rail by highlighting what else they could be doing on long journeys instead of driving.
Copley said the brand would look to be ‘bolder and braver' in its communications over the coming months, by illustrating the drawbacks of some people's driving habits.
The brand has already targeted notorious traffic hot-spots on motorways with tactical poster sites, as well as ads on the side of heavy-goods vehicles.
The work has used taglines such as ‘I want to be stuck in a good book, not a traffic jam', ‘I want to be stretched out in comfort, not stressed in traffic' and ‘I want to be fast, not furious' in an attempt to win over frustrated drivers.
Last year, Virgin Trains launched a series of TV ads, by MCBD, to promote the launch of its Virgin High Frequency services.
Sir Richard Branson, the chairman of Virgin Group, appeared in the campaign as a tattooed rubbish collector, his first appearance in a TV ad for nearly a decade.
Since the start of last year, Virgin Trains has operated three off-peak services an hour on its routes from London to Birmingham and Manchester.
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