The Orient Express: More than just a 'mystery' train

[John Ashworth]

More than just a 'mystery' train, the Orient Express whisked the elite across Europe in luxury and style

The celebrities were hot, and the champagne was cold aboard the Orient Express, the posh railway line that became synonymous with glamour and intrigue...

On October 4, 1883, in the Gare de l’Est train station, Paris was brimming with anticipation. Around two dozen intrepid passengers were preparing to board a luxury train that would expand the frontiers of travel. The train’s destination: Constantinople (now Istanbul). Its name: the Orient Express—an intercontinental rail service that would soon become a global legend. The idea of a railway linking Europe from west to east emerged from a project led by the Belgian engineer Georges Nagelmackers, and soon came to symbolize the belle epoque—a golden age in Europe spanning the end of the Franco-Prussian War in 1871 and the start of the First World War in 1914. It was a period when artistic culture flourished, “globe-trotting tourism” blossomed, and the middle and upper classes enjoyed a newfound prosperity and cosmopolitanism...