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Orient Express
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==History== [[File:Orientexpress1883.JPG|thumb|300px|The first Orient Express in 1883]] On 5 June 1883, the first ''Express d'Orient'' left Paris for [[Vienna]] via [[Munich]]. Vienna remained the terminus until 4 October 1883, when the route was extended to [[Giurgiu]], Romania. At Giurgiu, passengers were ferried across the [[Danube]] to [[Ruse, Bulgaria]], to pick up another train to [[Varna, Bulgaria|Varna]]. They then completed their journey to [[Constantinople]], as the city was still commonly called in the west at the time, by ferry. In 1885, another route began operations, this time reaching Constantinople via rail from Vienna to [[Belgrade]] and [[Niš]], carriage to [[Plovdiv]], and rail again to Istanbul.<ref name="Seat61"/> On 1 June 1889, the first direct train to Constantinople left Paris from [[Gare de l'Est]]. Istanbul, as it became known in English by the 1930s, remained its easternmost stop until 19 May 1977. The eastern terminus was the [[Istanbul Sirkeci Terminal|Sirkeci Terminal]] by the [[Golden Horn]]. Ferry service from piers next to the terminal would take passengers across the [[Bosphorus]] to [[Istanbul Haydarpaşa Terminal|Haydarpaşa Terminal]], the terminus of the Asian lines of the [[Chemins de Fer Ottomans d'Anatolie|Ottoman Railways]].<ref name="Seat61"/> [[File:Aff ciwl orient express4 jw.jpg|thumb|Poster advertising the winter 1888–1889 timetable]] The train was officially renamed the ''Orient Express'' in 1891.<ref name="Seat61">{{cite web | url = http://www.seat61.com/OrientExpress.htm#.UUAFExw9TTo | title = A history of the Orient Express | access-date = 13 March 2013 | last = Smith | first = Mark | work = Seat Sixty One | publisher = www.seat61.com}}</ref> The onset of the [[First World War]] in 1914 saw ''Orient Express'' services suspended. They resumed at the end of hostilities in 1918, and in 1919 the opening of the [[Simplon Tunnel]] allowed the introduction of a more southerly route via [[Milan]], Venice, and [[Trieste]]. The service on this route was known as the ''Simplon Orient Express'', and it ran in addition to continuing services on the old route. The [[Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye (1919)|Treaty of Saint-Germain]] contained a clause requiring Austria to accept this train: formerly, Austria allowed international services to pass through Austrian territory (which included Trieste at the time) only if they ran via Vienna. The ''Simplon Orient Express'' soon became the most important rail route between Paris and Istanbul.<ref name="Seat61"/> [[File:Orient Express Buchs.jpg|thumb|right|300px|Badge of the ''Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits'' on a car of the ''Orient Express'']] The 1930s saw the ''Orient Express'' services at its most popular, with three parallel services running: the ''Orient Express'', the ''Simplon Orient Express'', and also the ''Arlberg Orient Express'', which ran via the [[Arlberg railway]] between [[Zürich]] and [[Innsbruck]] to Budapest, with sleeper cars running onwards from there to Bucharest and [[Athens]]. During this time, the ''Orient Express'' acquired its reputation for comfort and luxury, carrying sleeping cars with permanent service and restaurant cars known for the quality of their cuisine. [[Royal family|Royalty]], [[nobility|nobles]], diplomats, business people, and the [[bourgeoisie]] in general patronized it. Each of the ''Orient Express'' services also incorporated sleeping cars which had run from [[Calais]] to Paris, thus extending the service from one end of continental Europe to the other.<ref name="Seat61"/> The start of the [[Second World War]] in 1939 again interrupted the service, which did not resume until 1945. During the war, the German [[Mitropa]] company had run some services on the route through the [[Balkans]],<ref name="EngRail">{{cite web | url = http://www.engrailhistory.info/r045.html | title = The Orient Express – Across Europe from London to Istanbul | access-date = 13 March 2013 | work = Eng Rail History | publisher = engrailhistory.info | archive-date = 25 March 2016 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20160325130318/http://www.engrailhistory.info/r045.html | url-status = dead }}</ref> but [[Yugoslav Partisans]] frequently sabotaged the track, forcing a stop to this service.<ref name="Seat61"/> Following the end of the war, normal services resumed except on the Athens leg, where the closure of the border between Yugoslavia and Greece prevented services from running. That border re-opened in 1951, but the closure of the Bulgarian–Turkish border from 1951 to 1952 prevented services running to Istanbul during that time. As the [[Iron Curtain]] fell across Europe, the service continued to run, but [[Warsaw Pact|the Communist nations]] increasingly replaced the ''[[Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits|Wagon-Lits]]'' cars with carriages run by their own railway services. [[File:Étiquette à bagage, (c)wagons-lits diffusion, paris.jpg|thumb|Luggage tag]] By 1962, the original ''Orient Express'' and ''Arlberg Orient Express'' had stopped running, leaving only the ''Simplon Orient Express''. This was replaced in 1962 by a slower service called the ''Direct Orient Express'', which ran daily cars from Paris to Belgrade, and twice weekly services from Paris to Istanbul and Athens. [[File:CIWL ORIENT EXPRESS TAURUS, (c) wagons-lits diffusion.jpg|thumb|Orient Express poster]] In 1971, the ''Wagon-Lits'' company stopped running carriages itself and making revenues from a ticket supplement. Instead, it sold or leased all its carriages to the various national railway companies, but continued to provide staff for the carriages. 1976 saw the withdrawal of the Paris–Athens direct service, and in 1977, the ''Direct Orient Express'' was withdrawn completely, with the last Paris–Istanbul service running on 19 May of that year.<ref name="Independent"/><ref name="Christie"/> [[File:Sirkeci-station Orient Express.JPG|thumb|right|240px|The [[Istanbul Sirkeci Terminal|Sirkeci Terminal]] in [[Istanbul]]]] The withdrawal of the ''Direct Orient Express'' was thought by many to signal the end of the ''Orient Express'' as a whole, but in fact a service under this name continued to run from Paris to [[Bucharest]] as before (via Strasbourg, Munich, Vienna, and Budapest). However, a through sleeping car from Paris to Bucharest was only operated until 1982, and also a through seating car was only operated seasonally. This meant that, as Paris–Budapest and Vienna–Bucharest coaches were running overlapped, a journey was only possible with changing carriages – despite the unchanged name and numbering of the train. In 1991 the Budapest-Bucharest leg of the train was discontinued, the new final station now becoming Budapest. In the summer season of 1999 and 2000 a sleeping car from Bucharest to Paris reappeared running twice a week, now operated by [[Căile Ferate Române|CFR]]. This continued until 2001, when the service was cut back to just Paris–Vienna, as a [[EuroNight]] train, though the coaches were actually attached to a regular Paris–[[Strasbourg]] express for that leg of the journey. This service continued daily, listed in the timetables under the name ''Orient Express'', until 8 June 2007.<ref name="Independent" /> With the opening of the [[LGV Est]] Paris–Strasbourg high speed rail line on 10 June 2007, the ''Orient Express'' service was further cut back to Strasbourg–Vienna, departing nightly at 22:20 from Strasbourg, and still bearing the name,<ref name="Christie" /><ref name="Seat61" /> but lost the train numbers 262/263 which it had borne for decades. The remains of the original train had a convenient connection to the Strasbourg-Paris [[TGV]], but due to the less flexible prices the route became less attractive. In the final years through coaches between Vienna and [[Karlsruhe]] (continuing first to [[Dortmund]], then to [[Amsterdam]], and finally to [[Frankfurt]]) were attached. The last train with the name ''Orient-Express'' (now with a hyphen) departed from Vienna on 10 December 2009, and one day later from Strasbourg. On 13 December 2021, an [[ÖBB Nightjet]] train began running three times per week on the Paris-Vienna route, although it is not branded as ''Orient Express.''<ref name="Nightjet"/> One of the last known CIWL teak sleeping cars from the period before the First World War can be seen at the former [[Amfikleia]] station site in Greece.<ref>{{Cite AV media |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fppds9oHdsk%7CThe |title=The Last CIWL Sleeper Car |date=2024-01-27 |last=krimskrams |access-date=2024-11-08 |via=YouTube}}</ref>
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