First Beginnings
Train journeys have come a long way since Trevithick built the first steam engine in 1804 and G. Stephenson opened the Stockton-on-Tees-Darlington railway line in England in 1825 - the world's first railway line. In fact, early railway travel was quite uncomfortable until the American industrialist George Mortimer Pullman introduced sleeping and dining cars to railway travel and these cars came to be known as the legendary Pullman cars in the 19th century.

Glamour and Luxury
And then started the era of the great European luxury trains. It is a fascinating history of stylish travel of the upper classes, the aristocracy, of wealthy travellers of a fashionable world in a bygone age. The gracious world of luxury trains and grand hotels was born when George Nagelmackers founded the world-famous 'Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits et des Grands Express Europeen' (the CIWL).

The Compagnie Internationale des Wagon-Lits
Nagelmackers, son of Belgian financier Edmonde Nagelmackers, was sent to America in 1868 by his father where he experienced the comforts of traveling in Pullman cars in the New World. With the help of Belgian king Leopold II and some other business partners Nagelmackers built an empire of not less than 31 luxury trains, which offered services from Vladivostok in the East to Lisbon in the West, from St. Petersburg in the North to Luxor in the South.

The Legendary Orient Express
The most famous train of all was the 'Orient Express'. Its name is shrouded in legend and has been immortalized by Agatha Christie's 1933 book 'Murder on the Orient-Express'. The Orient Express was the first luxury train in Europe. On 5th June 1883 she embarked on her maiden voyage from Paris Gare de l'Est across Europe and by 1889 offered a non-stop service from Paris via Munich, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Sofia to Constantinople (today's Istanbul).