ORIENT EXPRESS
THE STORY OF A LEGEND
Guillaume Picon
Text by Benjamin Chelly
Photography by
Kenneth Branagh
Preface by
IV – COMFORT FOR PASSENGERS
VI – PEOPLE
V
THE RAILWAY REVOLUTION
When railways first appeared in Britain at the end of the eighteenth century, they were used primarily to transport coal from mines. There were no locomotives then; the carriages were pulled by horses. It was less expensive to carry loads by rail than on roads. At the beginning of the 1820s, a rich industrialist in County Durham decided to construct a railway line. He was persuaded by an engineer, George Stephenson, to use a steam locomotive that he had invented. Inaugurated in 1825, the new train proved to be profitable in the long run. It cost more than a horse, but could pull a larger quantity of goods at a faster speed. The experiment was a success, and soon there was widespread demand for railways. Britain, the railway pioneer, was followed by France, the German States and Belgium; the last played an increasingly bigger role in this industrial adventure. It was in Belgium that the word ‘network’ was first used, with the opening of the Brussels–Mechelen line in 1835, which soon became the centre of a radiating set of rail lines covering nearly 600 kilometres.
Until the eighteenth century, boat trips took forever and transport by land was as good as paralysed.
Fernand Braudel
Arrival of a train carrying cheap fares (London, 1865).
For the powerful director who led the company through this prodigious period of development, throwing a party like this was child’s play. He has revived and modernised the Trianon celebrations of Versailles. The great and the good of Paris, from both the aristocracy and the worlds of the arts and industry, were invited to join a special train made up of four saloon cars.
Le Figaro, 19 June 1898
PUBLICITY
The years that followed the publication in 1870 of Nagelmackers’ Plan to Install Sleeping Carriages on Continental Railways showed his knack for publicity. The launch of the trains chartered by the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits were planned down to the smallest detail. As well as this, Nagelmackers staged events that would get his activities into the news. He also knew how to exploit the World’s Fairs, which were occasions that brought the industrial nations together. For all that, he didn’t overlook either advertising or the press.
NAGELMACKERS STYLE
Guided by his instincts, which rarely let him down, Nagelmackers orchestrated a total publicity strategy. From 1872, the year he ran his first sleeping carriages on the Paris–Vienna line, he always made sure to invite journalists. This was as successful as he had hoped, with a Viennese daily exclaiming: ‘Elegant society is beholden to the engineer Nagelmackers for this American style of travelling improved according to European conventions’! The managing director of the CIWL adopted the same strategy ten years later, when the company was no longer simply running carriages to be attached to existing trains but whole trains made up of its own rolling stock, apart from the locomotives. In autumn 1882, for the inaugural running of the Train Éclair de Luxe between Paris and Vienna, Nagelmackers personally invited journalists and people in the public eye: ‘You have no doubt seen in the newspapers that our company is organising an experimental train between Paris and Vienna known as the Train Éclair de Luxe. If you feel like it, and the prospect of a 2,000-kilometre journey by steam does not fill you with dread, we would be delighted to welcome you on board with us. I think it will be very interesting for those of you who travel frequently to judge for yourself how we propose to transport passengers more quickly and in greater comfort on the major rail lines across the continent.’
THE TOOLS OF AN EFFECTIVE STRATEGY
Additionally, Nagelmackers produced numerous publications aimed at travellers. The album HighLife (above and overleaf) was one of the most prestigious examples of this. The introduction to the sixth edition in 1883 defines the aim of the work. This was to ‘collect in a single volume everything that will appeal to artistic tastes and requirements of the reader and not simply accumulate information and adverts’ – in other words, to present ‘all the guidance needed by tourists, businessmen, society people, by all those, in short, who are travelling for purposes of business or pleasure’. This is train travel as lifestyle! The smooth running of the company was also due to the personal relationships of its managing director. Well versed in the ways of high society, Georges Nagelmackers nurtured and widened his circle of acquaintances. To this end, in 1886, he had a chateau built at Villepreux in the Yvelines region. There he
organised a number of society events – garden parties, hunts and other festivities, which were often written about by contemporaries.
What strikes the visitor most immediately is the huge amount of work and the sheer range of engineering construction on display. Never before have the efforts of so many been assembled in one exhibition. Nor has any exhibition been so cosmopolitan: all the peoples of the world have contributed. Exposition Universelle, Paris, 1900, Visitors’ Guide
View of the machine hall, Exposition Universelle, Paris, 1900.
WORKSHOPS AND WAREHOUSES
In a note of 1884 sent to directors and departmental heads of the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits, Georges Nagelmackers declared: ‘In my view, all our efforts must be applied firstly to perfecting and then expanding the special train services provided by our company.’ Besides the services offered to travellers during the journey, this demand for perfection applied to the rolling stock too. As a practical plan, the company decided to set up its own workshops to take care of the maintenance of its increasing supply of ever-more-complex rolling stock. Moreover, Georges Nagelmackers insisted that each new series of carriages utilised the most up-to-date innovations in railway technology. So it was up to the constructors to put this into practice!
Workshops around the world. The CIWL opened its first workshops in France in 1881. The last workshop (in Belgium) closed in 1998. Over the course of almost 120 years it set up a total of 34 workshops in 16 countries in Europe, the Middle East, Asia and North Africa.
In my view, all our efforts must be applied firstly to perfecting the trains..
FRANCE
France had a special place in the network of company workshops. In total, for close to a century, it had ten, seven of which were located in the inner Parisian suburbs in an arc stretching from Saint-Ouen to Choisyle-Roi, via Saint-Denis. This pre-eminence was due to the pivotal role that Paris played at the heart of the international rail traffic system. The size of the workshops gives an idea of the activities undertaken by the company. The workshops at Saint-Ouen, opened in 1881, covered an area of more than 4,000 m2. A lifting bay equipped with a transporter bridge allowed the complete overhaul of carriages. The growing number of vehicles in need of maintenance meant that the workshop soon had to be enlarged, which was made possible by the purchase of a 3,000 m2 plot on the same site. At the end of the nineteenth century the Saint-Ouen works were reorganised. The maintenance of the rolling stock was taken on by the construction company based in SaintDenis, which had been operating since 1892. On the eve of the First World War more than 500 workers were employed there: mechanics, adjusters, painters, carpenters, cabinet makers, French polishers, panel beaters, boiler makers, welders, electricians, decorators … This was consolidated in the 1920s by the construction of three new sheds. At the same time, the Villeneuve workshops, situated in Choisy-leRoi, were opened.
Kitchens at the stores on Place des Vosges.
On 20 april 1870, Georges Nagelmackers published his Plan to Install Sleeping Carriages on Continental Railways . This brochure was a type of manifesto. Without further ado, its author set about contacting the large European train companies to obtain the right to run his sleeping cars on their networks. In June 1870, Nagelmackers wrote a letter to the vice-president of a large French company, the Compagnie du Nord. He sang the praises of his services, especially extolling the ‘great comfort enjoyed by the passengers’. One month later, the Franco-Prussian War broke out, interrupting the negotiations that Nagelmackers had initiated. But it was soon business as normal again! Three years later a rolling contract was signed between the two companies. ‘Great comfort’ remained at the heart of the enterprising Belgian engineer’s project.
Luggage labels corresponding to the principal luxury trains of the CIWL.
In
1882 the company launched its first train,
the
Train Éclair de Luxe, on the Paris–Vienna route. It consisted of four sleeping carriages, one restaurant car and two luggage wagons.
When the Orient Express was created, it took 81 hours to get from Paris to Constantinople.
At the start of the 1880s, the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits consolidated its European base by signing deals with several different rail companies. It also extended the range of its services by introducing restaurant cars. The year 1882 marked a turning point. Until then, the company had attached its carriages to trains already in circulation. That year it launched its first train, the Train Éclair de Luxe, on the Paris–Vienna route. The Train Éclair consisted of four sleeping carriages, one restaurant car and two luggage wagons. The journey took 28 hours. The following year Georges Nagelmackers created the Express d’Orient, soon renamed the Orient Express; it took 81 hours to get from Paris to Constantinople! To avoid the discomforts that such long journeys entailed, the CIWL took charge of all their passengers’ needs. This involved offering the passengers, mostly businessmen and families from the upper classes, reassurance that they would enjoy the comfort to which they were accustomed. This started as soon as the passengers arrived at the station, and even before. Accordingly, a luggage pick-up and drop-off service was offered, with a check-in at home before departure and almost immediate delivery on arrival at the destination.
EVERYTHING THE TRAVELLER NEEDS
Art Deco marquetry evoking the Far East, designed for a Sud Express luxury train, around 1920.
The routes that the trains of the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits ran on from 1872 onwards evolved into a network, as Georges Nagelmackers struck new deals with the different train companies. Furthermore, the towns and countryside that the travellers went through, and the different populations they encountered when the trains stopped, offered them an original geography that was probably hitherto unknown to them. With the success of the express trains, this geography grew to cover three continents.
AN EXPANDING NETWORK
Immediately after the founding of the CIWL in 1872, the routes their trains ran on were still limited to Berlin–Ostend, Paris–Cologne, and Vienna–Munich. One year later, the Universal Exhibition in Vienna was the pretext for setting up a Paris–Vienna link. By the end of 1876, the company had signed 22 contracts enabling them to run 16 sleeping-car services. Central Europe constituted the heart of the network, which, by the start of the following decade, accounted for nearly 20,000 kilometres of railway line. In 1882, rather than simply attach his carriages to a train running between Paris and Vienna, Georges Nagelmackers decided to charter his own train. This was the beginning of the era of the express trains. In spring 1883, he signed a deal with the director of the Compagnie de l’Est which specified ‘special fast trains will run from Avricourt to Giurgevo, made up of luxury rolling stock with the aim of developing a direct link between Paris and Constantinople via Strasbourg, Vienna, Bucharest and Varna’. This contract was the last of eight signed with the other train companies along this route. The Express d’Orient, soon to be known as the Orient Express, was launched in October 1883. The route was a success, even if the passengers eventually arrived in Constantinople by boat, as the line terminated at Varna, the Bulgarian Black Sea port. It wasn’t until 1889 that the Paris–Constantinople route could be undertaken
by train all the way, via Belgrade and Sofia. Once again Nagelmackers got there ahead of the railway. This success encouraged him to expand the network used by the company. Looking in all directions, he hatched three major projects: to connect Saint Petersburg to Lisbon, Moscow to the Pacific Ocean, and to extend the Orient Express beyond Constantinople into the stones and sand of the Ottoman Empire. The CIWL’s field of operation grew considerably; in spite of the First World War and the destruction of part of its rolling stock, and regardless of the Russian Revolution and the end of the Trans-Siberian Railway, 1931 stands as the high-water mark of the company’s fortunes. Nearly 2,400 of its carriages were in operation in Europe, Africa and the Orient.
In black, the route of the Simplon Orient Express and its continuation beyond Stamboul (Constantinople) as the Taurus Express.
The orient express, the first train to connect Europe and the gateway to the East and the incarnation of all the desires and fantasies associated with it, was an immediate success. Quickly becoming known as ‘the king of trains, the train of kings’, it became a legend in its own lifetime. Thirty years after its final journey, Orient Express opens up previously unpublished archives and the doors to the restoration workshops, where the historic carriages, witnesses to this mythical story, are being brought back to life …