The Orient Express lets out a whistle and a chug, just as it did 130 years ago when it pulled out of Paris’ Gare de Strasbourg on its inaugural journey to Istanbul.
Crowds of Parisians gathered to watch that first journey on Oct. 4, 1883, and in the intervening years the train has lost none of its appeal.
However, on this occasion this most celebrated of trains is going nowhere and the sound effects, although evocative, are just a recording setting the scene for a new exhibition featuring three restored carriages and a locomotive.
Stepping on board, the visitor is immediately immersed in the atmosphere that once made the train the last word in elegant travel and inspired authors such as Agatha Christie and Graham Greene.
Everything is laid out just as it might have been in its heyday.
COMFORT
Plush, upholstered seats in the wood-paneled compartments are the first sign of the comfort to which passengers were accustomed, while old newspapers, card games and cigarettes lie on the tables.
The brainchild of Belgian engineer Georges Nagelmackers, the Orient Express — operated by his Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits — used the latest 19th-century technological advances to supply an unprecedented level of luxury for its well-heeled clientele. At a time when many in Europe’s capital cities still lived in slum conditions, passengers on the Orient Express enjoyed central heating, hot running water and gas lighting.
In the dining car, Orient Express-monogrammed china, a decanter of brandy and bottles of champagne are laid out on crisp white table linen. The wooden panels of the carriage are decorated with intricate inlay work.
LITERARY CONNECTIONS
Elsewhere, in a reference to the train’s literary connections, a Penguin edition of Greene’s Stamboul Train lies on a table beside an antique portable typewriter and a bottle of “Old Lady’s” dry gin.
Christie famously immortalized the train in her Murder on the Orient Express, which ends with the fictional Belgian detective Hercule Poirot presenting his theories to the assembled travelers in the dining car.
The murder mystery was turned into a 1974 film, with Sidney Lumet directing an all-star cast including Ingrid Bergman and Albert Finney as Poirot.
Ian Fleming and Bram Stoker were also inspired by the service. In Fleming’s From Russia with Love James Bond travels on the train, while Dracula also features a journey on the Orient Express.
Originally a twice-weekly service between Paris and Istanbul via Strasbourg, Vienna, Budapest and Bucharest, passengers made the last part of their journey to Istanbul by ferry.
In later years, the service branched out to include other farther-flung destinations such as Ankara, Baghdad and Cairo.
Over the decades the route changed many times and the service finally fell victim to a combination of modern low-cost air travel and high-speed rail.
LAST VOYAGE
The last return voyage to Istanbul ran in 1977, while the final Orient Express service, by then pared down to an overnight journey between Strasbourg and Vienna, ran in 2009.
By then the service had little in common with its illustrious forerunner. Without a buffet, let alone a restaurant car with silver service, the luxury for which it had once been famous had long since become the preserve of private trains such as the Venice Simplon Orient Express and the Danube Express’s Istanbul Odyssey.
BRAND
Today the Orient Express brand is the property of France’s SNCF national railway. It owns seven original Pullman carriages, which have national historic monument status in France, including the three that are on display at Paris’ Arab World Institute until the end of August.
However, for anyone keen to recreate something of the original experience, the Institute has brought in celebrity chef Yannick Alleno.
The Michelin-starred chef is to serve dinner priced at 120 to 160 euros (US$165 to US$220) per head in a “pop-up” restaurant in another original carriage until July 31.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion