First Paris-Istanbul Run of the Orient Express - Oct. 4, 1883

The Orient Express started its service from Paris to Istanbul, then often called Constantinople, on this day in 1883.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to This Day in History Class from how Stuff
Works dot Com and from the desk of Stuff You
Missed in History Class. It's the show where we explore
the past one day at a time with a quick
look at what happened today in history. Hello, and welcome
to the podcast. I'm Tracy V. Wilson, and it's October four.
The Orient Express made its first run from Paris to

(00:24):
istan Bull on this day in eight At that time,
istan Bull was more often called Constantinople. The Orient Express is,
of course, the world's most famous train. It was conceived
by George Nagglemackers. He had gone to the United States
and he had seen the Pullman sleeper cars that were
being used on a number of United States train lines.

(00:46):
These were transporting passengers and relatively more luxurious accommodations than
they had in other cars. He wanted something similar and
even better in Europe, so when he got home to
Belgium he started working up a plan. This plan took
him a really long time to put into action, though.
He first came up with this whole idea in eighteen
sixty five, and it was almost twenty years before his

(01:09):
train took its first journey. That was not all the
way to Istanbul. It was from Paris to Vienna on
June five, eight three. That's well over six hundred miles
or a thousand kilometers, so it's not like this was
a short trip, but it was not nearly to the
point of his very ambitious idea of connecting the whole
continent with an incredibly luxurious train. That first October fourth

(01:34):
journey from Paris to Istanbul was an eighty hour trip
was a media extravaganza. Eighty hours. That sounds like a
long time, but this was much faster and much more
comfortable than any of the ways that you could have
gotten to Istanbul before this. There were lots of reporters
on board, plus diplomats and dignitaries officials from Nagomacker's train company,

(01:58):
and they were all marveling at the use wonderfully luxurious accommodations,
with wood paneled cars, dining cars that served fine foods,
silk sheets on the bed, and a staff of attentive
people who were ready to serve. Nagle Bakers even used
those pullman sleeping cars that had been his original inspiration

(02:18):
to make his own train look better. He got some
really broken down dilapidated ones to compare them to his
brand new extra fancy train. That last stretch of the
journey from Paris to Constantinople had to be made in
that first trip by steamer. The rail line wasn't completed yet.
Those rails were finished in that took the eighty hour

(02:41):
trip down to sixty eight hours from Paris. A new
station opened in Constantinople in Ee, and this train became
associated with royalty, the rich and spies. There were, of course,
some actual murders that also did for real take place
on the train. Although this Paris to Istanbul roots was

(03:04):
the big name, most of the Orient Expresses service was
really connecting major European cities with daily service. The run
all the way to Istanbul was just a couple of
times a week. Over time, other train lines started using
the name Orient Express and offering similarly fancy service along
similar routes, and the Orient Expresses all over fiction. Although

(03:27):
not all of these books and stories and movies are
really about the Orient Express, some of them are about
some of these other companies that started using a similar
name as time went on. Some of these works include
Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express and Ian Flemings
from Russia with Love Murder on the Orient Express is
actually set on one of the other Orient Expresses, not

(03:49):
the Orient Express, a car from the Orient Expresses where
German officers surrendered during World War One. That same car
is also the one that Hitler ordered to be used
when France surrendered to Germany during World War Two. The
Paris to Istanbul run of the Orient Express ran for

(04:09):
the last time in nine seven, and then the Orient
Express itself made its last run in two thousand nine.
Although other outfits have picked up the name or some
version of it, there are some restored cars from the
original Orient Express that are still in use today. Thanks
to Eve's Jeff Cote for her research work on today's podcast,

(04:29):
Antatari Harrison for all of her audio work on this show.
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You can tune in tomorrow for a women's March hundreds
of years ago.