The Orient Express
Georges Nagelmackers, from Liège, had seen the sleeping cars of the American railways and believed Europe could have something better. In 1872 he founded the company that became the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits. His idea was a train that ran through several countries without passengers having to change, with sleeping berths, a dining car and staff who spoke the necessary languages.
The first through train left Paris on 4 October 1883 for the east. At first the railway was incomplete, and passengers had to be carried part of the way: travellers changed to a ferry across the Danube and then to a ship from Varna to Constantinople. Only in 1889 did a continuous line open, running through Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade and Sofia to the Ottoman capital.
A name and a legend
The Orient Express soon became a symbol of luxury and of intrigue, and it carried diplomats, businessmen and, according to rumour, spies. The name was used by several routes in the twentieth century, including the Simplon Orient Express of the 1920s, and the writers who used it as a setting did much to fix the image. The original service was gradually reduced, and the last train that carried the name on the old route ran in 2009. A private luxury train now runs under the name on parts of the old route.