Venice Simplon-Orient-Express

node · earth · Western and Central Europe

A privately operated charter train assembled from genuine Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits stock, which is a different thing from a surviving railway service. James Sherwood of Sea Containers began buying withdrawn 1920s carriages in 1977 and spent some US$16 million on around thirty-five sleeping, restaurant and Pullman cars; the restored train made its inaugural London Victoria to Venice run on 25 May 1982. It runs on ordinary commercial paths over ordinary national networks. Its existence is the clearest evidence for this Journey's central point: the carriages, the crew and the timetable slot can all be recreated commercially, because the expensive and irreplaceable thing — the alignment through the Alps and the Balkans — was already there.