Sunday, March 24, 2013

Orient Express: Last Stop In Istanbul


You probably have heard of the world famous Orient Express either in movies, historical references, literature (Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express) or just in popular culture. Well, I was right inside one of the pioneering international train’s most popular stops, indeed, the final stop, Sirkeci Gari or Istanbul terminus (Istanbul Gar). 

I was giddy approaching the ornate building of the train station on sighting a sturdy locomotive engine parked invitingly by the outside walls of the majestice edifice and got more excited when I made it through the the main door with the inscription Istanbul Gar and wandered into the hall where passengers waited to catch their trains, studied the intricate patterns of the interior orientalist-architecture, played with various memorabilia that were once functional items  both in the stop and inside the trains and reviewed magical photographs of the epoch when luxury travel oozed opulence.. The bells, the plates, glasses, wine servicers, train manifest, menu lists telephones, clocks and various nick knacks that defined luxury travel at the turn of the century transmogrified me back to that era.

Ironically, this train station, popularly referred to as Istanbul Gar is not a relic of the past but a still active train hub in Istanbul from which trains depart and arrive on a daily basis till this day. The terminal building which rises on an area of 13,000 sq ft is considered a famous example of European Orientalism and has influenced similar designs across the world.

Orient Express evokes the glamorous era of long distance travel in Europe that exuded class, luxury, adventure and international ambience. Stepping into the still elegant yard of the Istanbul Orient Express final stop  brought conjectures of passengers alighting from several days train ride from Paris traversing  major several major European cities as it bridged Western and Eastern Europe and indeed stopping less than half a mile away from crossing into the Asian continent. Just the narrow band of the Bosphorus strait keeps the train on the European side with Asia clearly visible from the station.

The first voyage of the Orient Express took off in Gar de l’Est in Paris France on October 4, 1883 and arrived Istanbul covering a distance of 3,094 kilometers after truncated moves which included long stops and ferry rides to complete the passengers’ journey. It was not until June 1, 1889, that the first non-stop train to Istanbul left Paris. Istanbul remained its easternmost stop until May 19, 1977.. The route usually traversed the well known cities of Strasbourg, Stuttgart, Munich, Vienna, Budapest and Bucharest among other smaller cities and ending in the Sirkeci neighborhood in Istanbul.

For a train that originated from the western edge of Europe traversing central Europe towards the eastern edge of Europe, its services were expectedly suspended  by the two world wars that were centered in Europe. The orient Express services were suspended in 1914 at the beginning of World War 1 and resumed right after in 1918. Again the Second World War ushered in another suspension in 1939 but services resumed in 1945

The end of this epic saga of the Orient Express coursing through Western and Eastern Europe and terminating in Istanbul had its last hurrah in 1977. After that what continued as the Orient Express ran shorter routes, none venturing as far as Istanbul and did change hands quite a few times. Even at that on 14 December 2009, the last surviving train service with the moniker Orient Express ceased to operate and the route disappeared from European railway timetables. Obviously it could not stand to compete with other faster means of transportation especially the high-speed trains.

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