The Orient Express was a long-distance passenger luxury train service created in 1883 by the Belgian company Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits (CIWL) that operated until 2009.

The train traveled the length of continental Europe, with terminal stations in Paris in the northwest and Istanbul in the southeast, and branches extending service to Athens, Brussels, and London.

The Orient Express embarked on its initial journey on June 5, 1883, from Paris to Vienna, eventually extending to Istanbul, thus connecting the western and eastern extremities of Europe.

Although the original Orient Express was simply a normal international railway service, the name became synonymous with intrigue and luxury rail travel.

However, post-World War II, the Orient Express struggled to maintain its preeminence amid changing geopolitical landscapes and the rise of air travel.

On 14 December 2009, the Orient Express ceased to operate entirely and the route disappeared from European railway timetables, a "victim of high-speed trains and cut-rate airlines".

[8] In contemporary times, the legacy of the Orient Express has been revived through private ventures like the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express,[9] initiated by James Sherwood in 1982, which offers nostalgic journeys through Europe in restored 1920s and 1930s CIWL carriages, including the original route from Paris to Istanbul.

[4][14][failed verification] The train left Paris Gare de l'Est on Tuesday, 10 October 1882, just after 18:30 and arrived in Vienna the next day at 23:20.

Georges Nagelmackers was the founder of Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits (CIWL), which expanded its luxury trains, travel agencies and hotels all over Europe, Asia, and North Africa.

The train was composed of: The first menu on board (10 October 1882): 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, buffet of desserts.

They resumed at the end of hostilities in 1918, and in 1919 the opening of the Simplon Tunnel allowed the introduction of a more southerly route via Milan, Venice, and Trieste.

[5] With the opening of the LGV Est Paris–Strasbourg high speed rail line on 10 June 2007, the Orient Express service was further cut back to Strasbourg–Vienna, departing nightly at 22:20 from Strasbourg, and still bearing the name,[6][16] but lost the train numbers 262/263 which it had borne for decades.

On 13 December 2021, an ÖBB Nightjet train began running three times per week on the Paris-Vienna route, although it is not branded as Orient Express.

Belmond also offers a similarly themed luxury train in Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand, called the Eastern and Oriental Express.

[26] In 2018, Accor began renovation work on 17 CIWL carriages from the defunct Nostalgie Istanbul Orient Express, which date back to the 1920s and 1930s.

[12][13] The glamour and rich history of the Orient Express has frequently lent itself to the plot of books and films and as the subject of television documentaries.