Dare to dream: a return of the Orient Express?
March 10th 2010 10:14
The old Orient Express had many incarnations but is associated mostly with the journey from Paris to Istanbul. The time the journey took varied, but it was at all times the stuff of legend, luxury and romance. It was mentioned in the literary works of Bram Stoker, Agatha Christie, Graham Greene, George McDonald Fraser and Ian Fleming.
The old Orient Express made its first journey on October 12, 1882, from Paris to Vienna. The menu read: oysters, soup with Italian pasta, turbot with green sauce, chicken à la chasseur, fillet of beef with château potatoes, chaud-froid of game animals, lettuce, chocolate pudding and buffet of desserts. The first Paris-Istanbul all-train service was on June 1, 1889.
The service ran for the last time in 2007, when the name Orient Express disappeared from all European train timetables. It was a victim, they said, of high-speed trains and cut-rate airlines. It left the world a sadder place.
The new Orient Express has just been announced.
It will run from London to Beijing. It will pass through Paris, Berlin, Warsaw, Kiev, St Petersburg, Moscow, Astana in Kazakhstan and Khabarovsk in Russia's far east. It will travel at about 320 kilometres per hour, and it will make the journey in just two days. The service could start operating as early as 2020.
It is a business vision from the only economic power on Earth with the energy, momentum and financial muscle to make this work, China.
I should make some caveats here. This is a proposal rather than a firm plan, 2020 is the "earliest possible" completion date, and there is actually no suggestion that it will be called the Orient Express. But they have to call it that, don't they? Please call it that. The world is a sadder place without an Orient Express in it.
www.telegraph.co.uk
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