The Orient Express was a luxury train route taking passengers from Paris to Istanbul on a posh three-night journey. Between 1883 and 1977, wealthy travelers enjoyed fine dining, sleeper cars, and personal service from a staff of well-trained porters. The route became world famous, and indeed many of us only know about it through fictional stories that took place on the trains. But the demand collapsed when air travel took over. The route and the name were leased by another company, but full trips to Istanbul only occurred once a year.
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However, a new company is joining them with the aim to bring back the luxury and nostalgia of the original Orient Express, with a proposed opening date of 2025. Getting the trains back together proved to be an enormous challenge. At its peak, the service used more than 2,000 train cars, including sleeper cars, dining cars, lounges, and cars for supplies and baggage. It means a lot to get those original cars back, but they had been scattered to the four winds, and many are assumed to be unrepairable. The company hired train historian Arthur Mettetal, who is doing his Phd on the Orient Express (about, not literally on) to locate the original cars. Mettetal went to great lengths, including tracking down faintly recognizable blue cars with cream roofs in the background of internet photos. He once ventured into Belarus and faced an armed standoff to negotiate for original Orient Express cars. Read about his quest, and the efforts to collect and refurbish the luxurious train cars of the Orient Express at Messy Nessy Chic.
(Image credit: Honza Groh (Jagro))
Source: neatorama