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NGLESE
TORIA
ISCIPLINE TURISTICHE E AZIENDALI
The
King
of Trains
and the Train of
Kings
T
he Orient Express is
a byword for luxury,
romance, history and
excitement. It evokes the
passions of a long gone era.
It has inspired countless
books and films. Among
them Agatha Christie’s
thriller
Murder on the Ori-
ent Express
, Alfred Hitch-
ock’s
The Lady Vanishes
,
James Bond’s thriller
From
Russia with Love
and Graham Greene’s classic
Stanboul Train
.
In 1865, a prominent Belgian banker’s son named
Georges Nagelmackers had a grandiose vision: a
train that would span a continent running from
Paris to Istanbul (then called Constantinople),
and covering more than 1,700 miles (about 2,740
km). During a trip to America Nagelmackers had
witnessed the many innovations in rail travel
there, especially George Pullman’s luxurious
“sleeper cars”, and had returned home
determined to realize his dream.
He founded the
Compagnie des Wagons-
Lits
(a French word for “sleeper cars”).
In 1883, the first journey took passen-
gers from Paris to Varna (Bulgaria).
The passengers were then ferried
by steamship across the Black Sea
to Constantinople.
Aboard the train were many journalists
to publicly marvel at the train’s luxury and
beauty. Nagelmackers furnished the train
with a library, a smoking room, many
dining and sleeping cars, de-luxe leather
armchairs, mosaic-floored bathrooms,
oriental rugs, silk sheets. No other usual
running trains of the same era could
compete with it when it came to design
and luxury.
The newspapers dubbed the train
“Orient Express” because it is in Constan-
tinople, its final destination, that Europe meets
Asia, and Nagelmackers embraced the name.
By 1889 the entire trip was made via rail.
The delighted passengers felt as though they
had entered one of Europe’s finest hotels. The
difficulty was that in those years Istanbul had
glamour but no style. Nagelmackers had to build
the Pera Palace Hotel, which even today stands
for a fantasy retreat in the Turkish city.
During WWI the service was suspended as the
journey out of Paris through Belgiumwould have
crossed the Western Front. In 1919 the Orient-
Express was reinstated via Zurich and Austria to
avoid Germany, but suspended again in 1923-24
after the occupation of the Ruhr.
Out of necessity, the Simplon Orient Express
was born in April 1919. The name “Simplon”
was added partly to differentiate it from the “old”
Orient-Express and partly because it ran through
the Simplon Tunnel and crossed Switzerland and
Italy instead of running through Central Europe.
In Belgrade it rejoined the old route to Istanbul.
In 1922 the new cars were painted blue with
gold lining and lettering, replacing the varnished
teak of the earlier cars. Blue and gold dining cars
also replaced the old restaurant cars from 1929
onwards. Those same blue and gold colours are
still used today.
The Orient Express continued to transport kings
and queens, emperors and presidents, diplomats
and millionaires, writers and artists, brigadiers
and spies between great European cities until the
break-up of WWII and came to be known as “The
King of Trains and the Train of Kings”.
Suspended during the war, the service was
resumed in 1947, but other forms of transport
nudged the Orient Express into decline. The
Wagons-Lits
company could no longer maintain
the service due to the declining passenger num-
bers. The last run left Paris in May 1977.
However, the legendary train was saved by an
entrepreneur and rail enthusiast, James B. Sher-
wood who, in the same year, bought two of the
train’s carriages at a Sotheby’s auction. In the
next few years some 35 carriages were purchased
and restored.
In 1982 the Venice Simplon Orient Express made
its maiden run from London to Venice. Since
then the Venice Orient Express has been carry-
ing passengers throughout Europe in its gleaming
carriages, continually extending its network of
culture-rich destinations.
All aboard for adventure! The legend lives on.
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