We continue our temporary pause on the Florida discussion, which had led us to boat trains (and the possibility of one in Miami), which brought us to George Pullman in general and then to British Pullmans, which brought us to overnight world travel in sleeping cars, some luxury, some humble, but with an emphasis on length of time. One overnight in a sleeper is great fun, but two or more is a more substantial trip, sometimes on regular trains, sometimes on cruise trains.

I hope it's becoming clear that, as we discuss where these famous trains went, we have to review European history of the late 19C and 20C. As we "travel" on these trains, we'll get a better feeling of the geography and history of the regions, at present in northeastern Europe, with the OE in southeastern Europe.

Some of those long trips run north-south, such as the Ghan in Australia (short for Afghan) and the Pride of Africa. But it seems more run east west; all those routes in the US and Canada, the Indian-Pacific in Australia, the Golden Eagle cruise train (also the Rossiya regular train) across Russia.

But when we came to Europe, lengthier routings were minimal, and we saw mostly single-night overnight trains, even to this day. Let's see why. It will also tell us why I made the statement that the route of the Orient Express was inevitable—it had to not only go east, but southeast.

We're used to seeing maps of Europe in a certain way, which perhaps may cause some complacency. Let's instead repeat the below map we've used before to look at Europe in a way that is far more realistic:

https://geology.com/world/asia-map.gif

We've discussed how the continent is really Eurasia, divided in actuality by the perceived difference of Eastern and Western cultures. I've also said it's a bit odd that areas significantly part of Western culture, noticeably much of the Middle East, are nevertheless considered part of Asia (West Asia). So be it. On this map, the commonly accepted border separating tiny Europe from huge Asia is not shown, so remember (click) that Turkey is split at Istanbul, Kazakhstan at the Ural River, and Russia is split between Perm' and Yekaterinburg.

On our Eurasia map we see Europe's size for what it is. Europe is actually a long peninsula extending from Asia, only covering about a fifth of the land mass. Along with the Russian Far East pointing toward Alaska, it seems to form a pair of "horns". Europe has been described as a subcontinent of Asia, just as the subcontinent of India is. It's quite small in area. The continents in order of size are: Asia, Africa, North America, South America, Antarctica, Europe, Australia, showing that Europe is the second smallest continent. However in population, it's the third-largest continent after Asia and Africa.

Then there are the shapes. Most continents have something approaching a uniform shape. As for odd shapes, I would say that coming in second would be North America, with Mexico and Central America spreading out to its south, to say nothing of Florida. But nothing beats Europe for odd shapes. Look at it again on our map. Extending from that central peninsula, to the left (south) are the Iberian, Italian, and Balkan peninsulas, like flags blowing in the breeze. And the Scandinavian peninsula isn't even attached to the central peninsula. And then there's the British Isles. Europe has to be the most irregularly shaped of the continents, something that has a huge affect on where you're going to place long-distance train routes. Any routes of length HAVE to be along that central peninsula, meaning—once again—lengthy east-west rail routes.

We've looked at Eurasia from the Pacific, entering at Vladivostok. There are, of course many other ports of entry, such as Shanghai. But what about entering Eurasia from the Atlantic? This map will tell the story:

https://g1.dcdn.lt/images/pix/mapa-transportu-morskiego-w-europie-70177776.jpg

Red shows the heaviest traffic. But because of the highly irregular nature of the Atlantic coastline, just where is the major entry point? You can't count the Mediterranean as having entry points on the Atlantic, and Norway north of the British Isles is not a major one. The British Isles certainly show major traffic, but they're not the Continent, are they? The eye is drawn to the central area of the Atlantic coast, the English Channel. Even the Baltic traffic enters via the Channel. Since Portugal reaches so far out into the Atlantic, Lisbon can be considered a secondary point of entry direct from the Atlantic, particlarly for Central and South America.

Let's further break down entries via the Channel. Certainly Southampton, serving London, is of huge importance, but again, it's not on the Continent. Cherbourg/Le Havre, serving Paris, would seem to be a source of entry that could lead to the need of long-distance sleeper service to continue some distance inland. We are going to see that long distance overnight trains will have as their western hub Paris, but always with London piggybacking. Put another way, we'll see that to this day, long-distance overnight London train service to the Continent will always involve ferry or Channel Tunnel service, usually to Calais, sometimes to Ostend in Belgium. Most frequently Calais service will connect to Paris, which is then the de facto starting point of such eastbound service in the west.

Continue to look at the traffic map. If Paris (with London) is the western hub, you'll see that overnight routes out of Paris can't be more than one night—to Spain/Portugal, to Italy, to Scandinavia. The only long-distance routes that were able to develop were along the central Europe peninsula leading east, including northeast and southeast. For that reason, while we may mention some other routes, we'll spend our time discussing the two major routes east, the Nord-Express (with its related Sud-Express) and the Orient Express. You may begin to see why I said the route of the Orient Express was preordained—it was because of the peculiar shape of European geography.

We discussed the Pullman trains in North America, and the British Pullman trains in Britain. We'll now see how sleeping cars developed so spectacularly on and across the Continent.

Nagelmackers    It all starts with a Belgian with an unusual name, Georges Nagelmackers. He was from Liège in Wallonia, the French part of Belgium, but his family name is Dutch/Flemish, from the Flemish part of Belgium. If you think the name is too formidable to remember, let's take it apart. We know surnames can come from professions, such as Baker, Cook, Singer. Even Cooper is a profession—coopers are barrelmakers. Perhaps you've heard of the jockey Willie Shoemaker.

I've checked, and the Dutch/Flemish name Nagelmackers can also appear without that unusual plural S, and also without the C, as Nagelmaker (it can appear in German as Nagelmacher). So all you need to know is that the first element means "nail" (try dropping the G, and you'll see), either as a Fingernagel or as the metal kind. So we see that the family name is based on the craft of the nailmaker. It should be easier to remember now.

Georges was born into a family of bankers with interests in railways, and himself trained as a civil engineer. The Nagelmackers Bank is a private bank and the oldest Belgian bank, founded in Liège by Pierre Nagelmackers in 1747. It still exists, and this is its logo, with a clever blend of N and M.

As a young man, he was involved in a disappointing romantic interlude, after which his family put him on a ship to New York and urged him to travel in the US to help him recover and to further his professional studies. The 23-year-old spent ten months in 1867–1868 in the US, and during his travels he was impressed by the Pullman overnight trains and became convinced there would be a market for sleeping cars in Europe.

At this point the narrative diverges. One version is that he actually met George Pullman and made him a proposal to collaborate in the Continental European market (remember that the British Pullmans were a different matter), but that that offer was rebuffed. The other version says he never met George Pullman. Yet on returning to Belgium, he decided to establish a network of sleeping cars for trains in Europe.

Back to his voyage to New York, which was a turning point in his career. During the crossing, he met Samuel Cunard, founder of the Cunard Line. He discussed with him the details of furnishing ship passengers with accommodations and dining facilities on Atlantic crossings. Then, when criss-crossing the US on sleeping cars, he paid attention to the grievances of passengers, especially those of women who felt a strong lack of privacy. From these experiences, he sketched out a basis for improving the comfort of rich European passengers.

Two years after returning home, in mid-April 1870 he published a brochure, in French, Flemish, and German, to develop sleepers for the European rail market called Projet d'Installation de wagons-lits sur les chemins de fer du continent / Project for Adding Sleeping Cars to Continental Railways. That title seems to tell it all, but his proposal couldn't have been timed worse, since three months later, in mid-July, the Franco-Prussian War broke out, lasting only a half-year, but delaying the granting of a concession from the Belgian government for the establishment of his first sleeping car service. However, that brochure not only laid out his plans, it used the term wagons-lits for the very first time, which would eventually become the short form of the name of his company.

But his banking family was hostile to his rail plans and withdrew all financial support. With the assistance of King Leopold II of Belgium, he got authorization to run a first sleeping car, which he paid for by himself, between Paris and Vienna, which was successful. In 1872 he founded in Belgium the first iteration of his company which, following Pullman's model, he named after himself, Georges Nagelmackers & Company. It owned five two-axle sleeping cars and he began to expand his routes. It was the beginning of his empire, that eventually ran from coast to coast—in Eurasia! It even entered Africa at Cairo.

But he needed financing, and teamed up with an American partner, William d'Alton Mann, who had filed a patent for a sleeping car that was different from Pullman's concept, which is the reason that Continental sleeping cars even today are different from Pullman's curtained affairs. So in early 1873, the two created "Mann's Sleeping Carriage Company"—note Mann's name this time—with sleepers having compartments with doors opening onto a lateral hallway allowing the passenger to go to the toilets at the end of the car. The cars were labeled "Mann Boudoir Sleeping Car" across the top, a promotional style that Nagelmackers would eventually keep on later iterations of his company. The picture shows Nagelmackers and Mann at sleeper No. 15 in 1874. I think "boudoir" is an interesting word to have chosen.

The Big Opportunity    Mann was good at promotion, and he pulled off a coup involving a royal wedding, as follows.

That was the event, now for the coup. For the Prince of Wales and his entourage to go to Saint Petersburg, instead of sailing up the Baltic, the logical route, Mann convinced him to cross over to the Continent and take one of their sleeping cars all the way to Saint Petersburg, at the time a most unusual, cross-border, international trip. It was great publicity. After that, new contracts with railroads started flowing in. By the end of 1876, their fleet consisted of 53 sleepers, running on the lines of 23 railroads.

National Borders    At this point it should be pointed out that Nagelmackers' task was fundamentally different. Railroads, with Pullman coaches, could roll across large countries like the US, Canada, and Russia, but in Central Europe, that wasn't the case. Starting in 1850, railroads had started appearing in the various countries as purely domestic developments. Long-distance border-crossing railroads were something between rare to non-existent. But it was precisely this lack that sleeping cars could resolve, particularly if they ran as Kurswagen/thru coaches. Nagelmackers had to contract with numerous railroads, but those national companies would provide the track, stations, and locomotives. Nagelmackers' company would provide and staff both sleeping cars and, after 1880, dining cars as well. Since Nagelmackers started out seeking an elite clientele, he arranged contractually that passengers would purchase a first-class ticket, plus a sleeper supplement of 20%. The railways would get the ticket revenue, and Nagelmackers' company would get the revenue from the supplement. The plan worked perfectly.

In December 1876, the two partners again changed the name of their company. It would no longer have either of their names, but the name would instead explain its purpose. The name at this point became the Compagnie internationale des wagons-lits / International Sleeping-Car Company. (This would still not be the final version of the name.) Unlike earlier names, this name declared its purpose as being international, and established what became the definitive French name for a sleeping car.

Terminology    There is some variety in terminology between languages. Review this selected database:

English: Sleeping car; Sleeper. British usage leans toward calling cars on a train "carriages".
German: Schlafwagen
Dutch/Flemish: Slaapwagen
Swedish: Sovvagn (to sleep is sova)
Danish & Norwegian: Sovevogn
Russian: Спáльный вагóн / Spál'nyi vagón (to sleep is спать / spat')
French: Wagon-lits (less often, Voiture-lits)
Polish: Wagon sypialny
Romanian: Vagon de dormit
Italian: Carrozza letti
Spanish: Coche-cama
Portuguese: Carro-dormitório

REFERENCE TO STRUCTURE: As to the structure, the vocabulary goes in two directions. English, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese all go for some variation of "car, coach, carriage", while all the others quite uniformly go for some variation of Wagen--and note it's always pronounced with a V, whether it's written with a V or W. While English speakers know the word from "Volkswagen", we've also been using it in Kurswagen. But the history of the word is more unusual than that.

It all started with Middle Dutch wagen, describing a wooden road vehicle pulled by a horse, and it crossed the Channel. Keeping that meaning, it became "waggon" (British spelling) and "wagon" (American spelling), still referring to a farm vehicle, such as a hay wagon. And it never moved beyond that in English—in other words, it didn't move to trains.

On the other hand, the word spread across the Continent, and was most definitely applied to trains as well. In German it applies to farm vehicles, such as a Heuwagen as in English, automobiles (Volkswagen)—a Krankenwagen, "sick-people's car" is an ambulance--and trains (Schlafwagen). In other languages it tends to be limited just to trains.

There's another really oddball development in German, which can also use the alternate word Waggon va.GONG, limited in use to a railroad car or tram. It was borrowed from (British) English, but developed a pseudo-French pronunciation!

REFERENCE TO USAGE: As for what the cars are used for, the majority of languages uses a variation of "sleep". But several go a different route. I love the Portuguese term, but keep in mind that that word, tho it reminds you of a dormitory, in Portuguese and Spanish is simply a word for "bedroom", so the Portuguese name is styled as a "bedroom car". And three languages go for the word "bed". Spanish uses cama in the singular, so its name is literally a bed-coach. The Italian word is letto, plural letti, so in Italian it's a beds-carriage. And so we come to French, which is really the whole point of this exercise. But just watch out for those notoriously "silent" letters in French!

A bed in French is a lit (LI, with a "silent" T). The plural is lits (also LI, with both the T and S being "silent"). The word wagon has a nasal O, which I indicate thus: va.GO[NG]. The plural is wagons, but with a "silent" S again, so it sounds the same as the singular. Odd, right?

Bottom line, since we'll be using this term a lot: if you have one sleeper, it's a wagon-lits. If you have several, they are wagons-lits, but it sounds the same. Also, Wagons-lits is the very famous short form of the name of Nagelmackers' company.

As for a dining car, it's much simpler. Names might be phrased as in English, such as German Speisewagen, otherwise as in French wagon-restaurant.

Success    From then on, the Wagons-lits company kept on expanding exponentially, not only on the European continent itself, but all across Eurasia, and even into a bit of Africa. I suppose you could compare it to a concessionaire, as when a city allows a concessionaire to build a private refreshment stand in a city park. During that first decade or so, many of its sleepers and diners were attached to the trains of various railroads, and that practice did continue well beyond that time. But after the first decade, Wagons-lits decided it was doing enough long-distance business that it ran trains exclusively consisting of its own sleepers and diners all across Eurasia. However, Wagons-lits never owned its own engines, always using engines from the local railroads that its cars were crossing. Therefore, tho its activities sound very railroad-like, Wagons-lits was never itself a railroad!

Named Trains    To my knowledge, all the "WL trains" were named, and I've seen a list of well over 100 noteworthy, named express trains run by WL. The most famous, plus some others worth discussing, are these, in the order of the years they were founded:

1883 Orient-Express
1886 Le Train Bleu
1887 Sud-Express
1896 Nord-Express
1904?–1917 Trans-Siberian Express
1930 Taurus Express
1936-1939, 1947-1980 Night Ferry, Paris-London

This list consolidates easily: The Nord-Express, Sud-Express, and Trans-Siberian Express can be described together. The same goes for the Orient-Express and the Taurus Express. That leaves just two singletons that we can quickly discuss right now.

But first note this, the title page of a 1901 WL Guide (click). You see the Orient-Express; the Mediterranée Express was an early name for Le Train Bleu, the Sud-Express and the Nord-Express among many more. You also see a sketch of the Pera Palace hotel in Istanbul, which WL built specifically for its clientele—more later.

Night Ferry    We already discussed the Night Ferry this year in 2020/4 (qv), which ran from 1936 to 1939, then again after WWII from 1947 to 1980. When my much more travel-experienced friend booked us on it in 1957 to go from Paris to London, I didn't think at the time that it was any different from any other overnight train, other than it quite uniquely got on a ferry and crossed the Channel (which I could hear happening during the night). Now I also see that, typical for WL trains, a French engine pulled it in France and a British one in the UK. But what I now see is even more unique about the train is that it was the only time WL ever, ever set foot—set wheels?--in the UK, which was otherwise the province of the British Pullman Company. On the following picture, the signage shows that this is a WL sleeper on the Night Ferry, a very unique situation that no longer exists (Photo by Reinhard Dietrich). The Eurostars in the Channel Tunnel are day trains, so this ferry was the only time sleeping cars crossed the English Channel. Even today's British Pullmans or the modern Orient-Express cruise train aren't allowed to enter the Channel Tunnel because of fire concerns. We'll talk about at a later time.

Le Train Bleu    Three years after the 1883 success of its first multi-night international prestige train, the Orient-Express, WL created its second luxury train in 1886, but this was a single-overnight train just within France meant to attract wintertime British vacationers to the French Riviera. It had several names at first, but because of the color of its dark blue sleeping cars, it was known colloquially, and eventually officially, as Le Train Bleu in French and The Blue Train in English. (This is not to be confused with South Africa's Blue Train, last mentioned in 2020/6.)

It became famous as the preferred train of wealthy and famous British and French passengers between Calais and the French Riviera in the interwar years (Map by Matsukaze). On the British side, a train called the Club Train would leave London mid-afternoon for the coast, where a ferry would connect with Calais and Le Train Bleu. Approaching midnight, it would stop at the Gare du Nord in Paris (this was typical of London piggybacking on Paris for travel beyond). By morning came Lyon, by the afternoon it reached Marseille, then Cannes, Nice, and others. As the map shows, for those going on to Italy, it did cross the border (just) and end in Ventimiglia.

However, in modern times, Le Train Bleu was replaced by high-speed trains, which cut the 20 hours of travel time to 5. It ended its run in 2007.

1883    The year 1883 was pivotal for the company for three reasons. 1) It established its first major train, the Orient-Express. 2) The partnership was dissolved, and Mann allowed himself to be bought out of the company by King Leopold II of Belgium (where Nagelmackers was from, and who'd helped him earlier) and Mann returned to the US.

And 3), with Mann gone, the company dropped Mann's name to finally become the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits. But it stayed that way for only a decade. In 1893, the name was lengthened considerably to the:

Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits et des Grands Express Européens

Nagelmackers wanted the world to know that, despite not being a railroad, his company 1) was international, 2) provided sleeping cars (wagons-lits), and 3) provided its very own Grand European Expresses. Its full length was prominently emblazoned across the top of every one of his cars (illustrations to follow), as we saw earlier being done on the Mann sleeping car, which was surely the inspiration for WL doing so as well. And with the new name came the famous WL twin-lion logo (Photo by Tamorlan). And if you concentrate very closely (click), you'll see what the lions are holding: a very decorative, loopy W whose ends are blossom-like in the lions' paws, surmounted by a very decorative loopy L that looks more like a pound sign (£)--the top is in their other paws and the bottom loops around the loops of the W. How's that for regal-looking! The blue-and-gold motif of the logo would eventually become the blue-and-gold livery of all their cars.

I first talked about this lengthy name, the longest I'm aware of for any company, in 2014/14, when I had just acquired a small collection of scripophily, canceled documents such as stocks and bonds. They're usually collected just for their art work, but my mini-collection of 13 pieces in German, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Swedish, Dutch, Italian, and Russian is also meant to illustrate my particular interest in both rail 'n' sail, and in those languages. One of the documents involving French rail is this WL beauty, a 1919 bond denominated in Belgian francs. The initials WL appear entwined twice in the attractive artwork, a WL train crosses at the bottom, and that magnificent über-long name requires two lines to be fully displayed.

Back to that lengthy name. It's a little clumsy to translate, but I do it this way. The first part, which alone was the first version, is the International Sleeping-Car Company, but once the second part was added, it's better to phrase it as the:

International Company for Sleeping Cars & for Grand European Expresses

It was founded as a Belgian company, but it later moved its headquarters to Paris. As we've seen, it quickly became the premier provider of its services for that last quarter of the 19C and well into the 20C. In 1931, at the height of its success during the interwar period, the company was running a record number of 2,268 rail cars.

But we've already seen that improvements in rail also bring a need for hotels. In Florida, Henry Plant built hotels all along his route to Tampa, notably the Tampa Bay Hotel. Henry Flagler built hotels all down the east coast of Florida, including the Ponce de Leon in Saint Augustine and the Breakers in Palm Beach, whose third incarnation still functions. Nagelmackers was no different. Shortly after his big year of 1883, he created in April 1894, as a subsidiary of WL, the Compagnie Internationale des Grands Hotels to develop and operate luxury hotels throughout the routes of his trains, so that WL passengers could have high-quality accommodations before and after their train trip. Perhaps the most famous of these is the 1892 Pera Palace in Constantinople, now Istanbul, still operating. It fits in so well to our narrative. It's the place where Agatha Christie is believed to have written Murder on the Orient Express. Her room is still in use, with a small memorial to her. We'll show and discuss that when we later discuss Istanbul.

While we're still about to discuss those most famous of WL's trains, let's first see how the history of the 20C affected WL. With the start of WWI, WL's coaches were confiscated for military use. In Germany and allied Austria-Hungary, the Mitropa company was founded to take over WL properties and services. In 1919, the communist government in Russia expropriated WL's local rolling stock and hotels.

In the interwar period, WL flourished again, with services spreading into the Middle East, even to Cairo. In 1926, metal coaches became available to replace the older wooden coaches built of teak. In 1931 the WL fleet reached its maximum of 2,268 vehicles. This interwar period lasting two decades can be considered the zenith of luxury rail travel, with all the famous WL trains we've mentioned and will still be discussing were at their peak. Not coincidentally, it was also the zenith of transatlantic ship travel. For example, the SS Normandie was launched in 1935.

But then came WWII, and once again, the feature of WL that its trains were international was a major part of its decline. As Eastern Europe became communist, WL lost more and more markets. After the war, WL increasingly moved into the travel agency business, and so, in 1967 it once again renamed itself. It was now the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits et du Tourisme (Interational Sleeping-Car and Tourism Company), but still shortened to Wagons-Lits. It still staffed sleepers, but no longer ran its "grand European expresses".

By 1971 WL's rolling stock had become aged and outdated, and the company could no longer afford to renovate or replace them, so it sold or rented its sleepers and diners to the national railroads of the countries it had served. In 2010, the French company Newrest acquired what little was left of WL. Today, it uses its subsidiary, Newrest Wagons-Lits, to manage its catering and related services where they still exist. Sic transit gloria mundi.

Nord-Express    We said earlier that we'd be discussing two long-distance trains, each with its own related trains, and the narrative will work best if we started with the Nord-Express and grouped with it the two others associated with it. Since the Orient-Express was WL's first great success in 1883 and the Nord-Express followed only in 1896, we are taking them out of order, but that suits the narrative much better. Life may be linear, but historic story-telling can jump about a bit.

One thing both trains had in common. As we pointed out that, within the long, narrow shape of the European continent, while single-overnight trains might go in any direction, the only direction for multiple-night trains to go out of the Paris hub (with London always piggybacking) was east, and both trains did this.

But a most interesting fact is this. While people today may remember the Orient-Express better (due to Christie?), the Nord-Express was considered in its heyday before WWI THE European luxury train par excellence, and remains one of the most famous of the WL trains.

For his second major long-distance train out of Paris, Nagelmackers chose Saint Petersburg as its destination. That certainly is distant, but while I've found no source saying so, I'm convinced that the trip Mann and he planned for the Prince of Wales to go to his brother's wedding in Saint Petersburg in 1874 has to have influenced this choice. While Saint Petersburg is well east of Paris, it's actually quite to the northeast, and perhaps on that basis he named this second luxury train of his the Nord-Express.

Northeastern Europe    For those whose recollection of late-19C European geography might be weak or nonexistent, let's watch the changes over three maps covering just a bit over the decade 1867-1878 (All Three Maps by Alexander Altenhof). This is just before the time that Nagelmackers and WL were launching both the OE (1883) to the southeast and the Nord-Express (1896) to the northeast, so this is the political situation he faced and had to work with. Generally, in this discussion we'll be talking quite a bit about northeastern Europe and its history, and will move to southeastern Europe and its history when we get to the OE.

This is Europe in 1867. Since the trains are going east, let's concentrate there, which is just is well, since that's where all the changes were taking place!
The Ottoman Empire (shades of light orange) continues to shrink from the huge multi-national size it had once encompassed (more on that later). Part of Greece is already independent, and Romania and Serbia are loosening their ties.
Austria-Hungary (shades of yellow) retains its huge multi-national size.
What was to become Germany is still in pieces, tho the Kingdom of Prussia (blue) in the north is dominant. The South German States are still independent, Bavaria being the largest. Find "my" Mainz (click), still among the latter.

This is the scene just four years later, showing Europe in 1871, after the Franco-Prussian War. Of the three above countries, the big difference is now that Prussia has unified the south German states into the German Empire under its leadership. The route WL has chosen to Saint Petersburg, after France and Belgium, has only the German and Russian Empires to deal with.

Finally, here we are seven years later, looking at Europe in 1878, the closest map to the time of the two earliest long-distance WL trains. The major difference is in the south, where the Ottoman Empire continues to crumble. Romania and Serbia are now independent, and other countries in the Balkans are on the way. But all this will affect the OE, and we'll repeat this last map then.

As for the Nord-Express, let's get a rough idea of what WL had to plan for to connect the following cities. Passengers in cars/carriages/coaches from London would go via Dover to Belgium, where they would meet the main Nord-Express from Paris. It then proceeded to Köln/Cologne, Berlin, and Königsberg, after which it crossed between empires, where there was a change of gauge. It stopped in Vilna/Vilnius, and at Daugavpils, then called Dünaburg, where a car went to Riga and others to Moscow. The main train then ran to Saint Petersburg, off the top of the map (hence, the "north" designation). This is just a general overview. We'll go in better detail shortly. But do understand that, to make his connections for the Nord-Express, Nagelmackers had to go into contract with 14 rail authorities and blend in to their timetables—among them were nine Prussian authorities alone—and also with the Dover-Ostend ferry service.

As we look into the Nord-Express—and later the Orient-Express--it's essential we take note how 20C history altered them, specifically the two World Wars, as mentioned earlier about WL in general. We have to realize that there were two heydays for both long-distance trains, from their founding up until WWI—which I'll call the Prewars Period (plural), with the understanding that the reference is to before WWI and refers to both World Wars, and then the Interwar Period, the two decades between World Wars. We'll hardly touch on the Postwars Period, that is, after WWII but referring to both wars, the time the trains declined into oblivion.

Prewars Period, 1896-1914    This lasted only 18 years for the Nord-Express, while the OE, having been founded in 1883, had a longer run at this time, 31 years. But before we go more deeply into the Nord-Express, we have to examine more carefully the "three-train" connection, the fact that two other WL trains were affiliated with it, the Sud-Express and the Trans-Siberian Express.

You'll recall we said at the outset that the other area on the Atlantic coast that saw considerable international passenger shipping, especially from Central and South America, was Lisbon, and sure enough, Nagelmackers thought big. His goal here was to have a train run from Lisbon via Paris to Saint Petersburg, perhaps being called something on the nature of a Nord-Sud-Express (conjecture). But apparently there were problems with the Prussian government—I haven't been able to determine what, but it illustrates the impedimenta of establishing international connections—and there was a cholera epidemic in France, which closed borders (compare with Covid-19) and that direct train never came about. So before establishing the Nord-Express in 1896, he split his concept in two and first established the Sud-Express in 1887 (sud = "south").

Below is the map for these Prewars connections lasting until 1914 (Map by Matsukaze).

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/86/Nord_Express_before_WW1.svg/1000px-Nord_Express_before_WW1.svg.png

First do note that national borders are as we said, particularly between the German and Russian Empires. (Also note that Le Train Bleu of 1886, just within France, is shown by a dotted line.) But let's start on the left, where the black line shows the 1887 Sud-Express connecting Lisbon via Madrid to Paris, where a connection became available to the Nord Express once it was established in 1896. However—surprise!—the Sud-Express was no simple overnight wonder, as it took two nights from Lisbon to Paris over 45 hours. It also had a connection to Calais (not shown) because London almost always piggybacks on Paris. The Sud-Express (Portuguese: Sud Expresso; Spanish: Surexpreso) started as a weekly, but by 1907 ran daily. There is a change of gauge between Iberia and France that we'll discuss more later, but, at this time period, the only way to overcome that was to have at the border a twin train of the other gauge, and all passengers would do a cross-platform transfer. In this case, southbound passengers at the border had to change trains at Irún (Spain), and northbound passengers at Hendaye (France). Therefore, that would make it a two-train run between Lisbon and Paris, just as I know it was later for the Nord-Express at the corresponding gauge break in the east, with Russia.

This is a poster from 1890 promoting the Sud-Express, particularly out of London. Here's a dining car in the Sud-Express in 1877. And finally, below is a period timetable, published in a Portuguese magazine in 1888, from which we can get lots of information.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fb/Horario_Sud_Express_-_GazetaCF_1_1888.jpg

Across the top is the Portuguese version of the full WL name, but sticking with the phrase "Wagons-Lits". Then we see that, sure enough, the European Portuguese name for a train is a comboio, reflecting on a "convoy" of cars. The next line says it leaves two times a week (during this period); Bordeus is Bordeaux. The next line proudly declares that it's "composed exclusively of wagons camas and [a] restaurant", here using another Portuguese phrase for sleeping car. On the left is the northbound connection, returning on the right. It leaves Lisbon at what today would be written 20:15 Wednesdays and Fridays, so you can see the two nights and three days involved. At the bottom, the connection to Calais and London is mentioned.

Most interesting is what is hidden at the bottom. Long before euros connected these countries, there were different currencies, as we well know. But particularly unusual is that, instead of declaring a uniform currency for the train (or for a ship), meal prices are quoted in Portuguese currency for meals in Portugal, pesetas for Spain, and francs for France. And for even more history, the Portuguese currency is not even the escudo, introduced in 1911, it's the old real, plural réis, which existed from c1430 to 1911, when it was replaced by the familiar escudo, which was itself replaced in 2002 by the euro. We can get so much history out of a train schedule!

Back to our rail map. We'll leave the Nord-Express (in red and blue) a moment longer, for last, in order to quickly mention the third train in this set. On the far right, you see the black line leaving Moscow. This is of course, the Trans-Siberian Express. What shocked me to learn now was that the sleepers and restaurants on that route were managed by WL! I believe that started right from when those trains began to run in 1904, since WL had permission from the Tsar himself to service those trains. I know WL was involved right up to 1917 at the time of the Revolution. Unfortunately, that's only 13 years. But look at the possibilities!

https://www.us-passport-service-guide.com/image-files/trans_siberian_railway_route.jpg

This is the Trans-Sib in the early 20C, running from both Saint Petersburg and Moscow. As we said earlier, the original 1904 route went thru Harbin, and WL definitely served both Harbin and Vladivostok, but the all-Russian route via Khabarovsk was completed in 1916, so it might be possible that WL ran its cars on that as well. But WL also connected to Pékin/Peking/Beijing—which I understand—but I've read that WL also reached Shanghai and Nanking, which is an additional surprise to me. What a formidable company Wagons-Lits was!

Now return to our Nord-Express map. Just visualize that, for a period of time at least (until war ended it), a person arriving from the Americas in Lisbon on the Atlantic could make continuous, luxurious sleeping-car connections across Eurasia via the Sud-Express, Nord-Express, and Trans-Siberian Express, ending on the Pacific. And this is all over a century ago.

Those were the two connecting trains, now we can concentrate on the Nord-Express proper on our rail map. We see the London service connecting in Belgium to the main service out of Paris (more details to come). Then in Germany, we see a split at Berlin. The northern route then crosses into Russia, where red turns blue, to indicate Russian broad gauge starting at the border towns and the change for passengers to a twin train across the platform. (The gauge change is not indicated for the Sud-Express at the Spanish/French border.) This route then goes up to Saint Petersburg, and is the one we'll follow. It ran twice a week.

I'm unfamiliar with the southern route that crosses into Russian Poland with a stop in Warsaw, but it ran once a week. The map implies that the gauge change is in Warsaw, not, logically, at the border, which I seriously question. It also shows that it's this Warsaw route that connects to Moscow and the Trans-Sib. Perhaps that did happen, but I don't know about it. What I do know, is that, in this period, in that Dünaburg we saw on the 1878 map, which is now Daugavpils, Latvia, there was a thru coach to Moscow and to the Trans-Siberian Railroad, and thereby to Vladivostok, China, and the Pacific. That's the route we'll be studying.

So the best-case trans-Eurasian scenario is this, as I see it. (1) Lisbon to the French border on Iberian gauge, thence (2) to Paris on a twin standard-gauge train. Change trains in Paris. (3) Nord-Express to the Russian border, then switch (4) to a twin Russian-gauge train. While this is headed for Saint Petersburg, (5) a Kurswagen takes off in Daugavpils for Moscow. Tho I'm not positive, my guess is that this is attached directly to the Trans-Siberian with no change of train in Moscow. Thus, gauge breaks cause a three-train run to become a five-train run, coast to coast.

The Ease of Online Research    It's no secret that, without the internet, this website would not exist. I remember in the past having to run off to libraries to look something up, specifically when we lived in Westchester and ran off cross-county to the Hastings library or to the Yonkers library to find out some musical information; also when we were in our Florida place, going off to New Port Richey and to a Tampa branch library for financial information. None of those ever paid off, by the way, all were wild-goose chases. Now the internet makes all the difference.

For what I need, museums and other organizations have websites with extensive data and there are history websites, but Wikipedia is a fount of general information I never could find in libraries at all. Not only do articles have pictures and maps, but Wikimedia Commons supplements them, and then there's always Bing.com which has everything else pictured. But here's a quirk that's easy to take advantage of. While English Wikipedia is excellent (and the largest by far), looking into other languages adds a lot. You don't have to know the languages, and Google Translate would help with that anyway. But for a major topic, I always scan German and French Wikipedia, which often will have additional facts, and surprisingly, also additional pictures and maps. And that's even truer, when the topic is something like Wagons-Lits—French Wikipedia is bound to have more than English on a topic like that.

But here's the zinger. Having checked out the above-mentioned Latvian city of Daugavpils in several languages, I thought it might be worth-while checking Latvian Wikipedia (why not?), and found a gold mine on this subject. Some words you can easily recognize, and then, there's always Google Translate for words, sentences, even paragraphs. I bring this up, because below, we'll see a whole series of picture postcards and other pictures showing Nord-Express stations en route, and this set was only available on Latvian Wikipedia (however, several I'm using came from other sources). In addition, there was a fabulous find—only Latvian Vikipedija (Wikipedia) had a full schedule of routes and times for the Nord-Express, end-to-end, dated for the ominous year of 1914. Let's make use of it now, while we quote the place names in Latvian—again, why not?

Riding the Prewars Nord-Express    It's 1914, and we're following Europe's most luxurious train eastbound across the Continent, the Nord-Express. Just listing the more important stops (in Latvian), the trip went as below. Follow the trip on the Nord-Express rail map, with backup on the 1878 map.

The black line in Britain shows that connecting day coaches left Londona at 9:00 for Dovera, where a passenger ferry connected, not to Calais, but to Ostende in Beļģija. There a Kurswagen (thru coach) from the Nord-Express connected to Genta (Ghent), Brisele (Brussels), and Ljēža (Liège), where it joined the main train at 19:13. Liège was Nagelmackers' home town, and it had always been his dream to have mainline trains stopping there. This is the Liège train station in 1905, with period streetcars.

Meanwhile, at 13:45, the main body of the Nord-Express left Parīze—this is the Gare du Nord c1900, with the horse carriages lending atmosphere. Once again, we see the huge historic value of picture postcards. The train then made 7 stops within Francija and Beļģija, finally reaching Ljēža, where it picked up the Kurswagen coming from Ostende with passengers from Londona. After 2 more stops in Beļģija, it then crossed into the Vācijas impērija (German Empire), making 1 stop before reaching Āhene (Aachen/Aix-la Chapelle), then 1 stop before Ķelne (Köln/Cologne), Diseldorfa, Dīsburga (Duisburg), Esene, Dortmunde, Bīlefelde, Hannovere, Štendāle (Stendahl), and Berlīne, where it stopped at three stations that line up across the central city: at 7:20 Zooloģiskais dārzs (Zoologischer Garten/Zoological Garden, here c1900); at 7:32 Frīdriha iela (Friedrichstraße, here c1900), and finally at 7:58 at Silēzijas stacija (Schlesischer Bahnhof/Silesian Station). The station had that name from 1881 to 1950. This picture shows loading mail there c1914, the very year we're discussing, but probably not on the Nord-Express. As the map shows, it's at the Silesian Station in Berlīne that a Kurswagen makes—as explained in Latvian via Google Translate: otrdienās tālāk uz Varšavu un Maskavu—on Tuesdays a connection to Warsaw and Moscow. But as the rail map shows, the main Nord-Express continues to the northeast to a gauge change at the next border.

That was a quick overview of what's coming, so let's continue our trip to the northeast after our morning departure from the Silesian Station in Berlīne. Just keep this next very helpful map available (Map by Peter Fitzgerald):

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4f/Baltic_states_regions_map.png/1200px-Baltic_states_regions_map.png

This is a modern map, with the empires gone. Königsberg in what was East Prussia is now called Kaliningrad in the Kaliningrad Oblast, so that gray area that once was part of Germany, the northern half of what was East Prussia, is now an exclave of Russia. (Talk about a flip-flop!) Everything else you see is independent. But project backwards to where Kaliningrad was in the German Empire and the border crossing to the Russian Empire was at the east end of the gray area.

After 5 stops, the Nord-Express reaches Kēnigsberga (Königsberg) at 15:56 on that second day. This was the Ostbahnhof/East Station there, again with horse carriages. After 1 stop it reached the border town of Eitkūni (Eydtkuhnen), the German border town, after which it crossed into the Krievijas impērija (Russian Empire) and stopped at the other border town of Virbale (Wirballen in German, Вержболово /Vyerzhbolovo in Russian), where it gained an hour for Russian time.

Just like the two towns of Irún and Hendaye on the Spanish/French border both these border town stations, just two km apart, were equipped with tracks of both standard and Russian broad gauges. A twin train would be waiting for a cross-platform transfer of passengers. As was the case at the Spanish/French border, the custom was to make the change within the country being entered, so in our case in this direction, we'll change trains in Wirballen, on the Russian side. This is the Wirballen station c 1900. The picture is an unbelievably rare find, and is one of those only available on Latvian Wikipedia. Presumably those tracks you see are of different gauges, and here passengers would change to a duplicate train of the other gauge.

Now we're in the Russian Empire all the way to Saint Petersburg, but as our newest modern map shows, we'd be in what is today Lithuania (the former Memel is today Klaipeda). Then comes Latvia, and only then the train would finally cross into what is today Russia. But we're in 1914, so after 1 stop, we reach Viļņa (Vilnius), now the capital of Lithuania, but at the time within Russia. This is Vilnius station in 1915. Automobiles have started to appear along with the horse carriages.

Then, on our second night on the train, in the middle of the night, at 1:49, the Nord-Express stops in Daugavpils, today Latvia's second city after Riga, the capital. Daugavpils is located on, and is named after, the Daugava River (Map by Karlis), which flows out of Russia and Belarus and also flows thru Riga to the Baltic. The earlier names of the city were (1) Dünaburg (to 1893); based on the German name for the river, Düna, so the city's name meant "Düna Castle", and has a history going back to the Teutonic Knights who founded the city after they came to the area in the 13C to Christianize it; (2) it was then called Dvinsk (1893-1920), since the Russian name for the river is Dvina, so Dvinsk meant "Dvinaville"; (3) since 1920, it's had its Latvian name, Daugavpils, following the 1918 independence of Latvia. Since pils is Latvian for "castle", Daugavpils once again means "Daugava Castle"—what goes around, comes around.

I have been to Vilnius and Riga, but never heard of Daugavpils before now—live and learn. This was the Daugavpils station c1900, when it was still called the Dvinsk station. Daugavpils was and is a major railway junction (see Baltic States rail map) and lies approximately midway between Riga and Minsk, and between Warsaw and Saint Petersburg. When our Nord-Express stopped here in the middle of that night, it dropped off a Kurswagen (thru coach) to Riga, in order to tie that city into the network, and also dropped off one headed for Moscow and even Vladivostok (the Moscow line would be the due east one on the map). Thus, out of Daugavpils, passengers could head in three directions.

Then the main body of the Nord-Express made four more stops before its final arrival at Pēterburga (Saint Petersburg) at 10:30 the next morning, completing the two-night trip. We discussed the Nord-Express in 2014/15 regarding "Rail in Saint Petersburg and Moscow". But in the two paragraphs above that, we first discussed the station the Nord-Express was allocated to, Варшaвский Bокзaл / Varshavskiy Vokzal, or Warsaw Station.

So now we're in Saint Petersburg, Nagelmackers' distant goal out of Paris. This is the Warsaw Station in 1904, again showing horse carriages.

https://parovoz.com/maps/spb-1237x1600-256.gif

This rail map is again from 2014/15, where I said that before we look at today's five stations [in Saint Petersburg], we have to mention one that, to my surprise, is now closed, odd considering the famous train that used to serve it. At the bottom, find the station marked with X's, whose nearby tracks are now disused, and their former trains have been parceled off to the stations on either side. It was originally built in 1851 for a short line . . . but later extended to Warsaw and to the Prussian border, connecting Saint Petersburg to Western Europe. The station was closed in 2001 and part of it now is a railway museum. So we talked about this then from the Saint Petersburg end, and now we're showing more details heading out of Paris/London.

One last point, comparing this map with the Baltic States map. The Nord-Express connected major cities of Lithuania and Latvia, including those that later became their capitals, even sending a Kurswagen to Riga, since the Russians had already built that branch. But it never connected with Tallinn, today the capital of Estonia, nor with Helsinki, the capital of Finland. But there's no need for concern. In those days as today, both cities have good local rail connections to Saint Petersburg, so arrivals on the Nord-Express could make connections to either. I've never taken either of those connecting trains, but I've driven on both sides of the Gulf of Finland from Saint Petersburg to Tallinn and also from Saint Petersburg to Helsinki, and neither is all that far away.

Interwars Period    Period But as we know, with WWI, the house of cards Wagons-Lits had carefully built came tumbling down. The Russian revolutionaries confiscated Wagons-Lits property there, and Germany, as an enemy of France, confiscated WL properties as well, and formed Mitropa. But again, let's make sure we remember the geographic changes in the period after WWI. Moving from the 1878 map, compare it with this map, particularly in Eastern Europe.

https://2012books.lardbucket.org/books/united-states-history-volume-2/section_08/7054d451f54118004c53555495314a39.jpg

The four countries on the eastern Baltic are now independent of Russia. Poland has been reconstituted after centuries, but not as it looks today. East Prussia is still there, but isolated by the "corridor" of land awarded Poland. (We'll discuss southeast Europe and what happened to Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire when we later discuss the Orient-Express.) But in the Interwars Period, Wagons-Lits and its long-distance trains had a second golden age. Things were different, but the Nord-Express was still popular, famous, and successful.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/42/Nord_Express_Interwar_period.svg/1000px-Nord_Express_Interwar_period.svg.png

This map (Map by Matsukaze) shows the route of the Nord-Express in red from 1925 to 1939, with the blue markings showing earlier variations. London via Ostend (or now also via Calais) still connects in Liège to the route out of Paris. But Saint Petersburg—or even Russia—is no longer the distant destination, so earlier modifications were made. An early Kurswagen goes to Hamburg and Copenhagen. After Berlin, a Kurswagen cuts way south to Bucharest. The main route still splits after Berlin, with the south branch still going to Warsaw in a newly-shaped Poland, and the north branch now cutting across the Polish Corridor to East Prussia, then to Lithuania and Latvia; but once there, cutting over directly to its new last stop, Riga! Both branches show connections, in black, to Moscow. I don't understand how these could be Wagons-Lits trains at this point, they might be Russian trains—or not. The southern route shows the border crossing into Russia—this has to be the gauge break, because the part of Poland that had been in Russia converted to standard gauge in the 1920s, as mentioned above. The northern route doesn't show any location for a gauge break, but it has to be at the same towns as earlier, between East Prussia and Lithuania, because the Baltics remain to this day stuck with Russian broad gauge.

We have some items about the Nord-Express in the Interwars Period. This is a Nord-Express dining car at the Schlesischer Bahnhof/Silesian Station in Berlin in 1929, and this is a Nord-Express sleeping car in that same period, location unknown.

And this is something rather unique. It shows the train formation of the Nord-Express in the 1938-1939 winter schedule (Illustration by Wahldresdner). Gray is the baggage car, red is the dining car, blue are the four WL sleepers. I was startled to see the word Niegoreloje so often (German spelling, so J=Y). I then discovered it was the border crossing on the Russian side going toward Moscow and changing to Russian broad gauge; returning the stop was at the Polish station Stolpce. In any case, you'll recall that the prewar train went weekly via the southern route but twice a week to the north. Here, it seems only the last sleeper goes north to Riga.

I have one more link, but unfortunately, I couldn't work it out just to get the map, it shows the whole page:

http://eurailtracks.co.uk/page14.html

The dashed-blue backwards-S is the old border, the dashed-red lines are the new borders. This map doesn't specify the Nord-Express, it just shows rail lines. It does show the Daugavpils-to-Moscow connection, and another out of Vilnius to Minsk and Moscow. But this is the only map I've ever seen that shows the border crossing at Stolpce/Niegoreloje. And the oddity of that is that that border (with the crossing towns) existed only between the wars. There are a few crossings today, but the main one goes thru Brest. Yet with the shifting borders, Brest isn't in eastern Poland anymore, it's in western Belarus! The old crossing was 50 minutes SW of Minsk, while today's crossing at Brest is over three hours SW of Minsk, showing how borders have changed. And it's where, on my Round-the-World ride from Moscow to Berlin, my train had its bogies changed, a somewhat surreal experience that we'll discuss later.

Postwars Period    As for the Postwars Period, it's too sad to mention. After WWII, new borders once again, as well as the Iron Curtain, interrupted the traditional routes. As of 1946, Nord/North was apparently recast to mean Scandinavia, as the Nord-Express ran only on that route from Paris via Hamburg to Copenhagen. As of 1952, it also acquired direct sleepers to Oslo and Stockholm, but no longer consisted exclusively of Wagons-Lits cars. It was then reduced from being a luxury train to a normal international express. Starting in the mid-1970s, it gradually lost the sleepers to Scandinavia, and by 1993-1994 ran only between Ostend and Copenhagen. It was finally canceled in 1997, marking the conclusion of the slow death of a giant.

For the sake of completeness, I want to include here the map of Europe after WWII (Map by San Jose). We see Poland in its new borders further west, and that tiny northern half of East Prussia is still there, still part of Russia. Belarus and Ukraine are now independent, and the only additional changes I know of is that Russia has forcefully taken Crimea from Ukraine and that Macedonia has renamed itself North Macedonia to placate Greek sensibilities. But again, we'll talk about the southeast along with the Orient-Express.

But since we're looking at the emerging of countries, I'd like to repeat something I said some time back, which is not standard thought, but which I think is much more accurate than standard thought. People think of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania as a three-country unit, "the Baltics". This is probably because they became independent as a group after WWI, then were invaded as a group by the Soviet Union, then became independent again after WWII. On the other hand, I feel most people feel Finland is a loner, having been part of two countries, but never independent early on, only after WWII. Thus the thinking about these four is 3+1. My thinking is different, that they should be visualized as a "group of 4" all on the east side of the Baltic and its extensions—the "East Baltics". The fact that the Gulf of Finland separates them (see map) should not make any difference.

When not considering them as 4 in that sense, they should be considered as 2+2, based on ethnicity and languages. Finnish and Estonian are not Indo-European like most other European languages, they belong to the Finno-Ugric family, with connections in Siberia. I remember when I was in Tallinn during Soviet times, I was told that locals listened to broadcasts in Finnish from across the Gulf for news from the West. When I was in Helsinki the second time, I stopped in a bookstore, and spotted a small Finnish-Estonian dictionary. I just flipped thru it, not understanding a word, but being impressed by the word translations being so similar to each other. For more details, see 2006/9.

We need a detailed language map to prove a point, and we have here one we haven't seen in a while, that shows those Indo-European languages within Europe (Map by Hayden120).
Quick review: dull red is the Germanic sub-family, dark blue the Latinate, dark green the Slavic. Those are the three "biggies" to always keep in mind.
As for the four smaller subfamilies: yellow is Greek, light blue is Albanian, gold is Celtic, and light green is—ta-da!—the Baltic subfamily of Indo-European languages, consisting of just two, Latvian and Lithuanian.
Now we can also peek at the Finno-Ugric family in maroon. The Finnic subfamily comprises Finnish and Estonian plus smaller languages in the region (Sámi, formerly called Lapp) and in Siberia. The Ugric subfamily comprises just Hungarian, much further south.
So my bottom line is, when considering the 4 East Baltic countries, we should sub-group them as 2+2: Finland & Estonia, and Latvia & Lithuania. That's how I always consider them nowadays.

Rail Baltica    There's a related modern-day topic I was going to leave to later when we discuss gauge, but it fits in nicely right here. We mentioned earlier that, in the 1920s, when Poland became independent, the part of it that had been Russian—which is most of it--changed its rail gauge from Russian broad gauge to standard gauge. However, our four East Baltic countries never had that chance, and to this day, all four of them have inherited rail systems of Russian broad gauge. This means that connections to Russia have no impediment, but connections to Western Europe have to undergo a gauge change. Yet the four countries are in the European Union and want better connections to it, and as you see, they're working in concert to obtain it.

It's called Rail Baltica, and is a project to link Finland (via ferry), Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania--and Poland as well--with a European standard gauge rail line. Its purpose is to provide passenger and freight service between them and also improve rail connections between them and Central Europe. It's one of the priority projects of the European Union. As of January 2020, the high-speed railway connection from Tallinn to the Lithuanian-Polish border was expected to be completed by 2026. As of June 2020, the undersea railway connection between Tallinn and Helsinki was expected to be completed around mid-2026. This map shows the passenger stations planned (Map by RB Rail AS).

http://baltictransportjournal.com/assets/files/news/rail-baltica-growth-corridor-1500.jpg

To see the larger picture, this second map shows Rail Baltica as it fits in as part of the North Sea-Baltic Corridor, connecting ports in Belgium, the Netherlands, and Germany to points east of Berlin. One must really compare this 21C plan to the late 19C Nord-Express, which covers similar territory, tho lacking both of the previous terminals, Paris/London and Saint Petersburg. It doesn't show the tunnel to Finland, but instead the present ferry. As of last November, a huge number of Estonians commuted every day to work in Helsinki by taking this two-hour ferry ride, while many Finnish tourists cross the Gulf of Finland each weekend to see Tallinn’s gorgeous Old Town and take advantage of Estonia’s relatively low alcohol prices. The proposed rail tunnel would shorten the commute to 20 minutes. Supporters of the project note that that's what many commuters would spend getting to work within the same city, let alone to and from another country.

The Tallinn-Helsinki Tunnel, already being called the Talsinki Tunnel (Map by Finnish Rail Administration), just as the Channel Tunnel is called the Chunnel, taking the shortest distance across, would have an underwater length of 50 km (30 mi), making it the longest undersea tunnel in the world--both the Channel Tunnel and Seikan Tunnel (between Honshu and Hokkaido in Japan) are longer, but have less undersea length. The tunnel, if indeed constructed, would open sometime after 2030. I've taken trains thru the Channel Tunnel several times, and once round trip thru the Seikan (2009/34), but the Talsinki will have to remain for the future.

Posters    Going back to the era of Toulouse-Lautrec and the Moulin-Rouge, posters have been part of the art world.

https://poster-auctioneer.com/images/products/113/poster_113194_z.jpg

Some are nice enough, but purely informational, such as the above one. From the destinations, this one must date from the Prewars Period. Note how the long company name has to be squeezed into the top, and that hyphen in the train name. As we've said, London always piggybacks on Paris on almost all routes. Connections to Berlin are daily, to Saint Petersburg are biweekly, and to Warsaw are weekly.

But then posters do get very arty as well. Cassandre was a well-known French poster artist whose real name was Adolphe Mouron. You may have seen the following:

https://www.christies.com/lotfinderimages/D59443/am_cassandre_normandie_d5944367g.jpg

His spectacular 1935 Normandie poster is well known. It doesn't get more Art Deco than this! Look at the size contrast with those tiny birds. Click to see his name at the upper right.

https://a.1stdibscdn.com/archivesE/upload/a_436/28_14/pt0543/PT0543_l.jpeg

Such was the fame of the Nord-Express, that in 1927, Cassandre had already done a poster for it. Note his name, and that Art Deco style emphasizing the speed. The train still went via Nagelmackers' Liège, but this being the Interwars Period, it only went as far as Riga or Warsaw.

Cassandre also crafted typefaces. In 1963, he made the logo for Yves Saint Laurent.

Fiction    Trains have always attracted fiction writers. Agatha Christie never wrote about the Nord-Express, but others did.
(1) In 1950, American author Patricia Highsmith wrote Strangers on a Train, about two people on a train, who'd never met before, but who agree to "trade murders", where each gets rid of the other's "problem", resulting in fatal consequences for both. But the story really took off the next year, 1951, when Alfred Hitchcock adapted the novel for his film of the same name. In the years since, that plot idea has been reused in numerous television dramas. So how does that affect our narrative?

The fame of the Nord-Express was still profound enough in Europe at the time so that in France, both the novel and film are known as L'Inconnu du Nord-Express / The Stranger on the Nord-Express. (Actually, a better translation is the much eerier "The Unknown Man . . . ").
In German the novel is known as Zwei Fremde im Zug / Two Strangers [plural] on a Train, and the film is now known as Der Fremde im Zug / The Stranger [singular] on the Train. But for quite a number of years the film had been known as Verschwörung im Nordexpress / Conspiracy on the Nord-Express.

(2) When writing about Paris in 2017/18 I once again discussed Georges Simenon's fictional detective Jules Maigret, both at his workplace on the Quai des Orfèvres and his home on the Boulevard Richard-Lenoir. I've read quite a number of the Maigret books, tho not nearly all. One that I have NOT read is the first one to feature Maigret, in 1931, called in French simply Pietr le Letton / Pietr the Latvian, often translated into English with an older, archaic word as Pieter the Lett.

Back to the point: the full original English title is rather longer than the French name: The Strange Case of Peter the Lett. As I understand what I've read about the plot, it starts with Interpol calling Maigret to the Gare du Nord because an international fraudster and gangster called Peter the Lett is due to arrive on the Nord-Express, which, as we've seen in this 1931 period does have Riga as its northeasternmost stop. Two people fit the description Maigret's been given, but one of them is a body he finds on the train. Thus the mystery involves the non-moving train, after it's arrived.

While the German title of the novel today is Maigret und Pietr der Lette, it was first published under the title Nordexpress. Yet it's noteworthy to notice that, while Simenon had Maigret find a body on the Nord-Express in 1931, in 1934 Christie had Poirot find a body on the (moving) Orient-Express. Was this to be a trend?

Moscow-Paris Express    In the last posting, 2020/7, we pointed out that nowadays, it's Russia that is a major player in long-distance overnight rail within Europe, maintaining several routes. As a leg of my Round-the-World-by-Rail trip, I chose the Moscow-Berlin overnight train on my way to Paris because I wanted to revisit Berlin, but mentioned that the Moscow-(Berlin)-Paris weekly train is the train that I find most interesting because it duplicates—coming out or Russia—what happened in the late 19C, but coming from the other direction, out of France.

At 3,483 km (2,164 mi), the Moscow-Paris Express is today the second-longest trip within Europe, the Moscow-Nice trip being slightly longer. That's approximately the distance from New York to Salt Lake City, and more than the distance from Sydney to Perth, which is only about 94% of that. It leaves from the Belorusskaya Station in Moscow (which already tells you it's going via Belarus, despite the O/A spelling change) and arrives in Paris in the Gare de l'Est, just as the Nord-Express did. Mark points out there are comfortable 2 & 4 berth regular sleeping cars, luxurious 1 & 2 bed VIP deluxe sleeping-cars and a restaurant car. The Russian Railways website points out proudly that the train's long-distance route crosses five countries, Russia, Belarus, Poland, Germany, and France. But that website, as well as Mark's and everyone else's points out how persnickety Belarus is, since it requires the purchase of a transit visa for every passenger, which has nothing to do with actually visiting Belarus.

http://www.parismodedemploi.fr/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/train_paris-est_moscou-1024x616.jpg

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Od2fyqL0i00/T1E1y_UA6fI/AAAAAAAAKdY/Tqmt94l2aWs/s1600/Moscow+Paris.jpg

These two maps show the route thru the five countries. The first map is in French; note the location of Brest, formerly in eastern Poland, but now in western Belarus. In Brest is where I experienced my only bogie change on my Moscow-Berlin trip, but we'll talk about that sort of interesting experience later. The second map is in Russian, and is just for fun. See what you can figure out.

Mark points out that what was then Soviet Railways started this connection in the 1960s. Interestingly, he says that it consisted just of one or two thru coaches (that we've been calling Kurswagen) attached to other trains to be transported across Europe, something else we've been seeing done in the past. He says they tried running sleeping cars from Moscow to many places, including Stockholm, Hoek van Holland (for London), Ostende and Brussels. Most interesting of all is that for a while, there was a Moscow-Madrid connection. Mark points out how unusual that was, since there were two gauge breaks, and bogies had to be changed from Russian to standard, then from standard to Iberian. I'll add to that, that what Russia accomplished, Nagelmackers never did, since he ended up having to run the Sud-Express as a separate train from the Nord-Express. After the government changed in Russia, these connections were discontinued one by one, with the Paris-Moscow service ending in 1994.

But then along came Russian Railways, which aimed their new service to the Russian tourists who could now travel, and the Paris sleeper came back in 2007. It was so successful, that in 2011 it was changed into an entire train to run the route, not just a single Kurswagen, and it ran with one overnight, on a day-night-day schedule. By 2015, there was also a general upgrade of all train facilities, with Austrian-built sleepers with showers at the end of the hall. It also switched then to the current two-overnight schedule, night-day-night, which allows for better connections, including same-day connections to London. Roughly, the schedule is this: leave Moscow 17:14 Tuesday, arrive Paris 9:40 Thursday. Or leave Paris 18:58 Thursday, arrive Moscow 11:44 Saturday.

https://images.travexpress.net/trains/127/1lg.jpg

https://turproezdka.ru/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/3.-vagon..jpg

The first link shows an interior, the second a destination sign reading Moskvá-Parízh.

http://images.travexpress.net/trains/127/0lg.jpg

https://www.seat61.com/images/Russia-paris-moscow-ext.jpg

This first link I think is a thrilling view—a Russian train in Paris. The train says we're at Paris-Est, and the buildings couldn't be more Parisian. SNCF is the French National Railway, whose engine is pulling the consist. We see the familiar gray livery with the red logo Russian Railways logo, more clearly seen on the second link. In 2020/6 I commented on the highly stylized logo of Russian Railways in Cyrillic letters, which I'll repeat, along with the logo:

[The continuation of the discussion of Nagelmackers & Wagons-Lits will be found in 2020/11.]