One of the serious challenges of rail transport service in Nigeria, is the poor quality of service. Improving the current service quality of rail transport requires among other things, that we understand the critical factors that influence the service quality. This study therefore examines determinants of rail passenger service quality along Lagos-Kano route in Nigeria. Convenience sampling technique was used to administer questionnaire to 361 respondents on board from each of the journey origin that is Lagos and Kano railway station. Also, number of passengers moved by the rail for both in-bound and out-bound was extracted from Nigerian Railway Corporation Passenger manifest. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, correlation analysis, Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and t-test inferential statistics with aid of Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) version 20 and Microsoft Excel. The results of correlation analysis show that correlation coefficients of the service quality variables are mostly positively related, with their ‘r’ values ranging from 0.006 to 0.809. The result of PCA of the determinants of rail service quality revealed that only four components have eigenvalues greater than 1. The cumulative percentage of variance reveals that the four components (comfortability, coaches and station cleanness, safety, service coverage and security of luggage) accounts for 71.61% of the total variation of factors that affect train service quality. The study recommends that Nigerian Railway Cooperation should install inside the trains walk-through metal detector with closed-circuit television in order to further maintain the perceived good in-train safety and security standard.