For 126 years, travellers who wished to commute around Europe in luxury would do so by boarding the Orient Express. The train became synonymous with extravagance and famously featured in books and films.
The original Orient Express ceased operating in 2009, but the good news is, it’s making a return!
French hospitality group, Accor, is planning to launch the refurbished train in 2024, just in time for the Paris Olympics. The route will commence in Paris and likely end in Istanbul, as it did in its heyday.
After being decommissioned, the convoy of the Orient Express seemed to disappear. The train cars were miraculously rediscovered in 2015 by industrial history researcher, Arthur Mettetal, who managed to track down their location after spotting them in a YouTube video. The cars were situated in a steppe on the Poland-Belarus border where they had sat, unattended, for 10 years.
Parisian architect, Maxime D’Angeac, has been tasked with restoring the luxury train to the opulence it once was, while still being contemporary. D’Angeac has been drawing inspiration from Art Deco designers, as well as the archives of the original Orient Express.
“We are reimagining the Orient Express to create something timeless,” says vice president of the Orient Express, Guillaume de Saint Lager. “The idea is to present a fantasy: a train that could have been made today or 100 years ago — with the addition of all the contemporary comforts, of course.”
The new convoy will entail 12 sleeping cars (each with its own bathroom), a restaurant car, three lounges, and a “winter garden”.
Tickets are set to go on sale next year.