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A Train That Changed How the World Imagined Travel

No train in history has captured the imagination quite like the Orient Express. For nearly a century, it was synonymous with adventure, luxury, intrigue, and the romance of long-distance rail travel. Its story spans the optimism of the Belle Époque, the glamour of the interwar years, the disruptions of two world wars, and a slow decline into the jet age — followed by a remarkable, ongoing revival that shows the enduring power of its legend.

Georges Nagelmackers and the Vision of Continental Rail Travel

The Orient Express was the creation of Georges Nagelmackers, a Belgian engineer who had been inspired by the sleeping car services he encountered in America during a visit in the early 1870s. Returning to Europe, Nagelmackers resolved to bring long-distance overnight comfort to continental railways, which at the time offered a fragmentary, nationally-divided experience: passengers crossed borders in discomfort, changed trains at frontiers, and had access to no sleeping accommodation beyond basic first-class carriages.

In 1872, Nagelmackers founded the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits (CIWL) — the International Sleeping Car Company — which would become one of the great luxury hospitality enterprises of the 19th and 20th centuries. CIWL's model was to provide its own luxury carriages that could be attached to the trains of various national railways, providing a consistent standard of comfort across borders. The carriages were equipped to a standard far above anything the railways themselves offered: polished wood panelling, upholstered seats and beds, fine linen, and dining cars providing restaurant-quality cuisine prepared by on-board chefs.

The 1883 Inaugural Run

On 4 October 1883, the first Orient Express departed Paris's Gare de Strasbourg (now Gare de l'Est) heading east. The inaugural route was not the direct Paris-Constantinople service that would later become the train's defining journey. The technology of the era — and the incomplete state of Balkan railways — meant that passengers completed part of the journey by sea, from Giurgiu in Romania across the Danube and then by steamer to Varna on the Black Sea coast of Bulgaria, before taking another train to Constantinople (modern Istanbul).

Even so, the inaugural run was a deliberate event staged for journalists and dignitaries, and it generated enormous press coverage. Nagelmackers understood that the Orient Express needed to be famous before it could be commercially successful. The first passengers dined on oysters, roast chicken, and Champagne while rolling through the Bavarian countryside — a spectacle that the invited press duly reported to their readers across Europe.

A fully overland route to Constantinople became possible in 1889, when the completion of rail links through Serbia and Bulgaria allowed the Orient Express to run the entire distance by train. The journey took approximately 68 hours — still shorter than the sea route and far more comfortable.

The Golden Age: 1920s and 1930s

The period between the two world wars is widely considered the Orient Express's golden age. CIWL had expanded its network of luxury services across Europe, but the Orient Express remained the flagship — the train that kings, diplomats, spies, and wealthy travellers chose when crossing the continent.

The carriages of the era were extraordinary objects in their own right. The 1920s and 1930s saw the interiors redesigned in the Art Deco style by designers such as René Prou and René Lalique — the latter contributing his distinctive pressed glass panels depicting stylised figures and foliage to some carriages. Marquetry wood panelling in exotic species, silk lampshades, and monogrammed linen created an atmosphere closer to a grand hotel than a moving vehicle.

The passenger list of the interwar Orient Express read like a Who's Who of European power and glamour. Mata Hari, Agatha Christie, Marlene Dietrich, Lawrence of Arabia, the King of Yugoslavia, and countless diplomats and intelligence officers passed through its corridors. The train's route through central Europe, crossing multiple national boundaries and threading through the political tensions of the interwar period, naturally attracted those for whom discretion, speed, and comfort were equally important.

It was this atmosphere that Agatha Christie captured in her 1934 novel Murder on the Orient Express, in which the train becomes snowbound in Yugoslavia and the detective Hercule Poirot must solve a murder among a cast of international passengers. Christie had herself travelled the route extensively — she visited her archaeologist husband Max Mallowan at his excavation sites in the Middle East by Orient Express. Her novel fixed the train's image in global popular culture permanently: exotic, international, slightly dangerous, and glamorous.

Disruption: World Wars and the Cold War

The Orient Express's route through central Europe made it uniquely vulnerable to the political upheavals of the 20th century. During both World Wars, the service was suspended or severely disrupted. In World War One, the route through the Balkans became a battle zone. In World War Two, Nazi occupation of much of Europe meant that the train served different purposes for different masters — the SS commandeered CIWL carriages, and the luxurious spaces that had once hosted cosmopolitan travellers were put to far darker uses.

After 1945, the Cold War created a new barrier. The Iron Curtain ran directly across the Orient Express's traditional route, and travelling by train from Paris through Vienna, Budapest, and Belgrade to Istanbul meant crossing repeatedly between Western and Eastern Europe, with all the border formalities, currency regulations, and ideological tension that implied. The train continued to run, but it no longer felt like the cosmopolitan adventure of the 1930s.

Meanwhile, jet aviation transformed long-distance travel. A journey that took 68 hours by train could be accomplished in a few hours by air, and for those for whom time was money, the train's advantages — comfort, scenery, the pleasure of the journey itself — were insufficient to outweigh the speed of flight. Through the 1960s, 70s, and 80s, passenger numbers on the Orient Express declined steadily. Carriage standards deteriorated as CIWL reduced investment in a service that was no longer profitable.

The Final Run: 2009

By the 2000s, the Orient Express had been reduced to a single weekly service operating only between Strasbourg and Vienna — a ghost of its former extent. On 12 December 2009, the last scheduled Orient Express service ran, ending 126 years of continuous operation. The route, the passengers, and the occasion bore little resemblance to the splendour of 1883, but there were railway enthusiasts on board to mark the occasion.

The Venice Simplon-Orient-Express: Luxury Revival

Before the original service ended, the legend had already been revived in another form. In 1982, American entrepreneur James Sherwood — founder of the luxury travel company Belmond — purchased a collection of original 1920s and 1930s CIWL carriages that had survived in various states of disrepair across Europe. After an extensive restoration programme that returned them to their original Art Deco magnificence, Sherwood launched the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express (VSOE) in 1982.

The VSOE operates as a luxury heritage experience rather than a conventional train service. Carriages — including original 1920s sleepers, dining cars, and bar cars — are restored to period standards with modern safety systems added discreetly. The service runs primarily between London and Venice, with extensions to destinations including Istanbul, Paris, and Rome depending on the season. Prices start at around £2,500 per person for the London-Venice journey and rise considerably for longer itineraries or premium suites.

The VSOE appeals to a market that values the journey as the experience — passengers dress for dinner, dine on multi-course meals prepared in the galley kitchen, and wake to sunrise over the Austrian Alps or the Italian lagoon. It is explicitly positioned not as transportation but as a moving luxury hotel, closer in spirit to a cruise than to a conventional train journey.

The New Orient Express: A 21st-Century Chapter

The legend continues to attract investment. In recent years, Accor Group — the French hospitality company — in partnership with SNCF (French National Railways) announced plans for a new Orient Express luxury train service, unconnected to the VSOE but drawing on the same heritage and romantic association. The project aims to use specially designed new carriages with contemporary luxury interiors, with routes covering classic European itineraries. The new service, targeted for launch in the late 2020s, represents a significant investment in the proposition that there is an enduring market for extraordinary long-distance rail experiences that no airline can replicate.

For related history, see our guide to the Channel Tunnel and the Eurostar.