Chemins de fer Orientaux (Oriental Railway)

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The Ottoman trunk railway of European Turkey, and the piece of infrastructure without which there is no Orient Express. On 17 April 1869 the Porte granted Baron Maurice de Hirsch a concession to build roughly 2,500 km of main and branch lines connecting Constantinople with Vienna, the state guaranteeing a fixed payment per completed kilometre. Construction began in January 1870 simultaneously at Constantinople, Dedeağaç, Salonica and Dobrljin. Renegotiation under a new grand vizier in 1871 cut the programme back, and the Vienna–Constantinople link was not finished until 1883 — the same year Wagons-Lits put its first through carriages on it. The luxury train is the tenant; this is the building.