The original Orient Express train is set to return in 2025
Have you ever had the urge to relive Agatha Christie’s Murder On The Orient Express but without all the murder? If the answer to that question is yes, please pay close attention. In just three years’ time, The Orient Express will hit ride again, 140 years after it made its first passage. The new locomotive features 17 breathtaking carriages modelled on the original Nostalgie-Istanbul-Orient-Express cars, which were discovered in Poland back in 2015.
The iconic train service is currently being given a reboot by the French hospitality group Acor. The Orient Express 2.0 will be unveiled at exhibitions in Paris and Miami before its much-anticipated 2025 debut. The locomotive’s stunning carriages have been reimagined by French architect Maxime d’Angeac, who has worked to evoke the glamour of Orient Express founder George Nagelmacker’s original concept. “This is the reinterpretation of a legendary train, conceived as a new embassy of French luxury, d’Angeac said in a recent statement, “Sublimated by the know-how and talents of the best French craftsmen.”
In 1883, The Orient Express began taking passengers from Paris to Istanbul (then known as Constantinople) via Milan and Venice in one opulent stretch. Passengers crossed the Simplon tunnel, a feat of modern engineering that opened up a new route through the alps. In the 1920s, the train became synonymous with the excellence of French travel, thanks in part to the designs of decorator René Prou and master glassmaker René Lalique, who helped transform its lounge cars into works of art.
Those 1920s art-deco designs have been given new life in Orient Express 2.0, the lavish interiors of which feature mahogany panelling, velvet furnishing and ornate dining areas set beneath iridescent domes of glass. Each table in the emerald bar area boasts a clock set to ring dinner and cocktail times. What more could you ask for?
The Orient Express was immortalised in Agatha Christie’s 1934 murder mystery, Murder On The Orient Express. The book was published on the 1st of January that year and has since been adapted for the screen countless times. Though the quality of such adaptations has varied, one thing has remained above all doubt: the intense beauty of The Orient Express.
