The original Orient Express train will soon
return to Europe
Seventeen refurbished original cars from the legendary
Orient Express will run through Europe once again in time for the 2024 Paris
Olympics
By Thomas
Barrie
30 June
2022
How exactly
does one “lose” a train? It might sound difficult, but that is apparently what
had happened to the Orient Express – or at least 17 of its original carriages –
until the cars were rediscovered in a remote train station in Poland, near the
Belarusian border. Now, the carriages are undergoing restoration in France and
will be redeployed in time for the 2024 Olympics in Paris.
In 2015,
French historian Arthur Mettetal was working for the national rail service of
France, SNCF, when he uncovered a video on YouTube that led him to uncover 17
of the original Nostalgie-Istanbul-Orient-Express carriages dating to the 1920s
and 1930s; several years later, the owner of the cars agreed to sell them to
the Orient Express brand, and in 2018, they were returned to France. On
Tuesday, Accor, the company which owns the brand, announced that the 12
sleeping cars, restaurant car, three lounges and van will all be incorporated
into live services between Paris and Istanbul from 2024 onwards, after a
thorough renovation.
The vintage
carriages reportedly still have many of their original period features,
including Lalique glass panelling, marquetry by Morrison and Nelson, and art
deco detailing. Speaking to Travel + Leisure magazine, the vice-president of
the Orient Express Guillaume de Saint Lager explained how restoration work had
been ongoing for a year, with architect Maxime d’Angeac given the brief to
refresh the carriages’ Gilded Age splendour. “The brief to the designer was
really to find this perfect balance between past, present, and future," he
told the magazine. “Some guests will think that [the train] has been built in
the 1930s. Others will see that it's a modern interpretation, but we like to
play with the notion of time and to really blur the line between past and
future.”
The first
nine cars are expected to be revealed in December, including six sleeping
carriages, a restaurant, a bar, and what they describe as “an experimental
salon”, before the final eight cars will be revealed on a staggered basis by
2024. The train will boast three varieties of suite, including a Presidential
suite that will take up a whole car. The “salon” car will host performances and
events, and will take as its theme a fantastical winter garden – which Saint
Lager characterises as a deliberate stylistic break with the rest of the train.
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1 comment:
I wanted to lecture about, then go on all the major train journeys in different countries, but alas not the Orient Express. I will be the first passenger on the Orient Express in 2024, depending on the costs.
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