Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits

Assembled from 24 blocks · 3 evidence · 19 related

1. Story
2. The Belgian company founded on 1 October 1872 in Liège that operated the Orient Express and most of Europe's named luxury sleepers. Its model was unusual and is the key to the whole story: it owned rolling stock and staff, not infrastructure, and sold a service across national railway networks that had no interest in coordinating with each other. That let it assemble an international train in an era with no international railway. Its carriages outlived its services — the 1920s stock James Sherwood bought from 1977 became the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express, and seventeen further 1920s CIWL cars rediscovered in 2015 are being restored for a relaunch under the Orient Express name.
3. Knowledge
4. The through sleeping car
5. Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits
6. Georges Nagelmackers
7. Connections
8. Orient Express
9. Georges Nagelmackers
10. The through sleeping car
11. Nagelmackers founds the sleeping-car company at Liège
12. The first Express d'Orient leaves the Gare de l'Est
13. The Venice Simplon-Orient-Express makes its inaugural run
14. Relaunch of an Orient Express train using rediscovered 1920s carriages
15. Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits
16. The first Express d'Orient leaves the Gare de l'Est
17. Nagelmackers founds the sleeping-car company at Liège
18. The main-line steam locomotive
19. Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits
20. Nagelmackers founds the sleeping-car company at Liège
21. Evidence
22. Supports the founding of the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits on 1 October 1872 and its sleeping-car operating model. V55 verification basis: the museum dossier appeared in search with its founding date in the document title; the PDF was not retrieved and its contents were not read.
23. Supports Nagelmackers' birth at Liège on 25 June 1845, his death at Villepreux on 10 August 1905, his 1867–68 American journey and the founding of the Wagons-Lits company at Liège on 1 October 1872. V55 verification basis: the portal's dated entry and its founding-date headline were carried in attributed search results; the page was not fetched.
24. Reports that seventeen original 1920s Wagons-Lits carriages rediscovered in 2015 and acquired in 2022 are under restoration in France, with the relaunch target moved from 2026 to 2027. V55 verification basis: a January 2026 travel-trade report carried in an attributed search result; not fetched, and the target date is a commercial plan that has already slipped once.