Last run for Orient Express

I found the article here: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/stor ... 224&live=1

This, from http://www.seat61.com/OrientExpress.htm#end clears up which train is being discussed:

"The end of the Orient Express: 12 December 2009...

On 12 December 2009, EuroNight train number 469 'Orient Express' left Strasbourg on its final overnight run to Vienna, and on 13 December the celebrated name 'Orient Express' disappeared forever from the official European timetables after 126 years. The Orient Express may have been the ultimate example of a knife that's had both its blade and its handle replaced many times, but this train was indeed the true descendant of that first 1883 'Express d'Orient' and it officially carried the name 'Orient Express'. You can trace its evolution from timetable to timetable, year to year from 1883 to 2009. On its last run, the Orient Express had evolved into an Austrian Railways (ÖBB) EuroNight train, with one Austrian Railways air-conditioned sleeping-car (1 & 2 bed compartments, including two deluxe compartments with toilet and shower), two modern air-conditioned couchette cars with 4 & 6 berth compartments, and an Austrian seats car. The Orient Express had been cut back to start in Strasbourg rather than Paris in June 2007 when the Paris-Strasbourg high-speed TGV line opened, meaning that it could no longer be combined with a French domestic train between Paris & Strasbourg. Although a TGV connection from Paris was provided, the writing was on the wall for this train when it stopped linking the French and Austrian capitals directly. It had lost its Paris-Budapest Hungarian couchette car and Paris-Bucharest Romanian sleeping-car in June 2001, and it hadn't carried any through cars for Istanbul since the 1960s.
You might now be a bit confused...

...because you thought that the Orient Express was a special luxury train, and that it originally stopped running in 1977, was then beautifully restored and put back into service and runs from London & Paris to Venice and costs a fortune to travel on and people like Alan Whicker & Terry Wogan travel on it and do TV programmes about it... The train you're probably thinking of is the privately-run 'Venice Simplon Orient Express' (VSOE), which uses vintage restored sleeping-cars & dining-cars and costs around £1,600 per person between London & Venice. Wonderful though the VSOE is (and you'll find more information about it here) it is certainly not the 'original' Orient Express (there's no such thing) or the 'real' Orient Express (that's the train referred to above, withdrawn on 12 December 2009). This page attempts to clear up some myths, put the Orient Express in context, and explain what the Orient Express really was."

For even more info on the Orient Express, go to the seat 61 link.

i was in a railway station in Europe when i noticed the platform sign up for the Orient Express . i excitedly got my camera out , and waited for it to arrive . It did . Lets just say it bore no resemblence to any of the images the name conjures up . I guess i could have ridden it on my rail pass , to say i had . but i think my dissapointment overide that desire .
Anyway , basically this was just a ld train thatr has been superseded by faster trains etc . it had nothing to do with the luxury Orient Express , though i guess hter may have been a few mix up s over the years /

David Benton wrote:i was in a railway station in Europe when i noticed the platform sign up for the Orient Express . i excitedly got my camera out , and waited for it to arrive . It did . Lets just say it bore no resemblence to any of the images the name conjures up . I guess i could have ridden it on my rail pass , to say i had . but i think my disapointment overide that desire .
Anyway , basically this was just a ld train that has been superseded by faster trains etc . it had nothing to do with the luxury Orient Express , though i guess there may have been a few mix ups over the years /

For many years it had been a rather low grade train, without even food service.

But one can still travel to Istanbul by several routes by train. Seat 61 explains how. One has to change trains at Budapest, for example.

Hi there!

Because it was the last ride of the Orient Express on 12/13 december 2009, i made a tribute to the "train of the trains".

You can watch it when you click on the following link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NlF55VD4MJk

If you have any questions, you can ask me certainly!

Manuel S.

Excellent!!! A fitting 'good bye' tribute to a great train. Well done!!!!
Would love to have been able to 'get' one of those car destination signs that said "ORIENT EXPRESS" on it. Collectors items for sure.

Nothing like the train in the movie. However you can see it was at one time. What a shame and a loss.

@ CarterB:

Thank you! It was my favourite train. And now it´s gone - after 126 years.

But I had the chance to catch one "original" plastic-made of them.
On the last evening there were only sheets of paper with the destination on it...

I can recall my one and only July 1960 Orient Express ride Paris/Est to Stuttgart.

Train was steam powered to Strasbourg, electric within Germany. Consist was simply a non descript string of Coaches, Couchettes, and Wagon-Lits. Somewhere there was a Diner. Our (with family) Wagon Lit was set out at Stuttgart with occupancy to 8AM. From there it off to pick up the Bennie in which the remainder of the Continental sojourn was completed.