Orient Express

The sharp increase in suburban traffic after the First World War led to a further remodelling of the station in 1930. As a result of settlement activities in the Parisian suburbs, the EST had to add more suburban trains. Between 5 p.m. and 8 p.m., the station recorded 25 train journeys per hour, with 24,000 people travelling on suburban services during this time. Long-distance traffic also recorded strong growth and rose from twelve million travellers in 1910 to around 26 million travellers in 1926. The number of trains had almost doubled from 295 to 472 in the period from 1903 to 1927. The EST headquarters therefore decided to extensively expand the railway facilities. The number of platform tracks was to be increased from 16 to 31, while at the same time the existing platforms were to be extended from 275 metres to 300 metres in length. By creating three additional tracks, three trains were to be able to arrive and depart from each of the three additional tracks. The baggage handling area was to be enlarged and a new façade around 200 metres long was to be built. Last but not least, the transfer situation to the metro station of the same name was also to be improved. The new track plan envisaged tracks 1-10 for departing long-distance trains, tracks 11-23 for arriving and departing suburban trains and tracks 24-31 for arriving long-distance trains.

High-speed TGV and ICE trains travel to destinations in Luxembourg and Germany. These trains use the LGV Est européenne high-speed line, which went into operation in June 2007.

Destination stations in Germany are Karlsruhe, Stuttgart, Ulm, Augsburg and Munich as well as Saarbrücken, Kaiserslautern, Mannheim and Frankfurt am Main.

Gare de l'Est is the starting point for the EN 452/453 night train to Moscow, which is operated by the Russian state railway RŽD.

The luxury Venice-Simplon-Orient-Express train stops at the station several times a year. (Source: Wikipedia)

 Nouvel-Avricourt (Deutsch-Avricourt)  station was located at kilometre 411.0 of the Paris-Strasbourg railway line. From 1875 to 1918, it was the most important German border railway station for traffic between France on the one hand and southern Germany, Austria-Hungary and south-eastern Europe on the other. The name of the railway station changed several times due to the changing nationality, partly also due to political sensitivities:

• 1875-1915: Deutsch-Avricourt • 1915-1919: Elfringen (Lorraine) • 1919-1940: Nouvel-Avricourt • 1940-1944: Elfringen • 1945-1969: Nouvel-Avricourt

The Paris-Strasbourg railway line was built by the Compagnie du chemin de fer de Paris à Strasbourg, which later became the Compagnie des Chemins de fer de l'Est (French Eastern Railway), and went into operation in the summer of 1852. The nearest railway station at the time was Igney-Avricourt, about 1.5 km away, which connected the villages of the same name to the railway.

After the  Franco-Prussian War , the Peace of Frankfurt drew a new border between Germany and France. As a result, the new border cut through the Igney-Avricourt-Cirey railway line twice, threatening the local economy. In a supplementary agreement to the Peace of Frankfurt on 12 October 1871, Germany and France then agreed on a revised border in this area: France was allowed to keep the village of Igney, part of the Avricourt district, the Igney-Avricourt railway station and the entire Igney-Avricourt-Cirey railway line. In return, France bore the costs for the new German border railway station to be built by the Reichseisenbahnen in Alsace-Lorraine: Deutsch-Avricourt.

After the ideas about how much the new railway station should cost differed greatly (France calculated 568,000 francs, Germany 960,000 francs), an agreement for 796,000 francs was finally reached in January 1875. The subsequent construction time for this large railway station is so record-breaking - it went into operation in the summer of the same year - that it can be assumed that construction had already begun before the agreement of January 1875 and that the station was already in operation before final completion. The first prominent user was King Ludwig II of Bavaria, who crossed the border into France here on 24 August 1875 with three saloon carriages provided by the French government.

The station had three platforms and three platform tracks: A house platform and an island platform on the main line and a platform on the "street side" of the reception building for the Deutsch-Avicourt-Bernsdorf line. The station was also so large because German customs and border controls took place here and the corresponding staff had to be accommodated. It was also used to transfer passengers between the EL and the French eastern railway for trains coming from France. Trains from France entered the station in left-hand traffic. All travellers had to leave the French train, which returned empty to Igney-Avricourt station. In the station building, travellers had to undergo immigration and customs checks before boarding an EL train, which left the station on the right. When travelling in the opposite direction, the German train travelled to Igney-Avricourt station, where the procedure was mirrored. The Orient Express was the first connection where travellers did not have to change trains here. Travellers also used the stopover at the border to eat at the station buffets.

The Paris-Strasbourg railway line was the most important for traffic between France, southern Germany, Austria-Hungary and the Balkans. In addition to the Orient Express, the Paris-Karlsbad Express also stopped at the station. On the eve of the First World War, 26 passenger trains, 16 express and luxury trains and 10 passenger trains crossed the border every day. 40% of cross-border passenger traffic between Germany and France travelled here. Other local passenger trains travelled to and from Bensdorf via the line. With the French victory in 1918, Alsace-Lorraine became French again and the station now belonged to the Administration des chemins de fer d'Alsace et de Lorraine (AL). It had lost its function as a border station and local traffic was shared with Igney-Avricourt station, which was only 1.5 kilometres away and more conveniently located in relation to the village of Avricourt. Its importance declined dramatically. Since 1922, express trains no longer stopped here. In 1934, the neighbouring Igney-Avricourt station also became the transfer station between the AL and the French Eastern Railway, both of which - like the Nouvel-Avricourt station - were transferred to the SNCF in 1938. The German occupation during the Second World War used the still extensive railway facilities as a transport and logistics base. During this time, the railway station belonged to the German Reichsbahn. (Source: Wikipedia)

Straßburg

The construction of today's railway station dates back to the building activities of the Imperial Railways in Alsace-Lorraine. The station was built on the site of the Strasbourg Vauban fortifications. Construction work on the station building began in 1878 to a design by the Berlin architect Johann Eduard Jacobsthal. Two parallel platform halls were built next to the station building. The station was inaugurated on 15 August 1883 and replaced the old Strasbourg terminus station. The new station was highly modern and the first major railway station to be completely electrically illuminated - a sensation, even for travellers on the Orient Express.

At the end of the 19th century, the station was called  Strassburg Centralbahnhof , and from 1905 at the latest, Straßburg Hbf. The station building has two storeys, is 128 metres long and is made of red sandstone from the Vosges mountains. The ground floor is at the level of the station forecourt. Stairs lead up from there to the platforms. The railway tracks are spanned by two steel arches. The façade is designed in neo-Renaissance style. It was the first major public building in Strasbourg to be erected by the new German rulers after the Franco-Prussian War of 1870/71 and was intended to be large enough to accommodate an entire German army. From the outset, it was electrically lit and equipped with central heating. Goods lifts originally transported luggage to the platform.

The reception building with its rich decoration has changed little since its completion at the end of the 19th century until the beginning of the 21st century.However, the two frescoes by Hermann Knackfuß, with which he had decorated the side walls of the large reception hall in 1885, disappeared irretrievably in the course of the 20th century. As part of the connection to TGV transport, the station underwent significant remodelling work in 2006 and 2007. A new vestibule was created with a glass wall placed in front of the reception building, which is arched at the top and connects to the façade of the building, under which an additional basement level was also created.

Two important long-distance transport routes meet in Strasbourg. On the one hand, Strasbourg is a stop on the Magistrale for Europe, which connects Paris via Strasbourg with Karlsruhe, Stuttgart, Munich and Vienna as well as Bratislava and Budapest. In addition to this east-west axis, Strasbourg is also on the north-south axis from Brussels via Luxembourg, Strasbourg to Mulhouse and on to Switzerland and from Mulhouse to Nice on the Mediterranean. Since 9 April 2013, the EuroNight EN 452/453 Paris-Moscow train pair (via Berlin, Warsaw and Minsk) has also been running via Strasbourg station. Since the high-speed line to Paris came into operation, TGV trains have been running to Paris Est every hour, of which a total of four train pairs are through-connected to Stuttgart Hbf, including one to Munich Hbf. The EuroNight train to Vienna Westbahnhof, known as the Orient-Express, was discontinued with the 2009/2010 timetable change in December 2009. (Source: Wikipedia)

Until 1922,  Stuttgart's Main Railway Station  was located on Schloßstraße, which is now called Bolzstraße in the relevant section, near Schloßplatz. This was the first station to be built by building councillor Karl Etzel as a four-track terminus station for the opening of the Württemberg Central Railway, which ran in two branches to Ludwigsburg and Esslingen.

The station did not stand out in the development of the former Schloßstraße. A wooden hall spanned four tracks. The first train arrived from Cannstatt on 26 September 1846. By 1854, the first phase of railway construction in the Kingdom of Württemberg had been completed with lines to Heilbronn, Bretten, Ulm and Friedrichshafen.

Due to the ever-increasing volume of traffic, this first railway station was replaced by a new building on the same site between 1863 and 1868. The senior civil engineers Klein, Georg Morlok, Carl Julius Abel and the later city planning officer Adolf Wolff designed this as an eight-track railway station with a magnificent façade and arches in the Renaissance style.

Parts of the former station façade are now integrated into an event and cinema complex (Metropol). The former central railway station was renamed Stuttgart Hauptbahnhof in 1897 at the latest. (Source: Wikipedia)

In 1879, the new  Munich railway station  was equipped with an innovative lighting system with differential arc lamps from Siemens & Halske. The electricity required was generated by several generators below the station restaurant. The Munich Central Station is thus considered to be the first electrically lit railway station in Germany. A few years later, the station proved to be too small again. In 1893, the Royal Bavarian State Railways opened the Starnberg Wing Station. It had six tracks and only a temporary wooden building. Long-distance traffic was now concentrated in the main hall, while local traffic in the direction of Pasing was transferred to the wing station. On 1 May 1904, the station was renamed Munich Central Station. The station now had 22 tracks and handled 300 trains a day.

The station was badly hit during the air raids on Munich in the Second World War, but operations could be resumed each time. It was not until 25 February 1945 that train services had to be rerouted after 112 bombing raids. Despite a shortage of building materials and complicated approval procedures, reconstruction began on 6 May 1945, so that 128 trains could be handled again after 24 July 1945. From 16 December there were 235 trains a day. From 16 May to 16 August 1949, the platform hall, which was in danger of collapsing, was first blown up and then the remaining ruins of the building were demolished to make reconstruction possible. The new beginning after the war was marked from May 1950 by the construction of the new Starnberg wing station according to plans by Heinrich Gerbl, which was criticised in particular for its monumental pillar hall designed in the neoclassical style of architecture during the Nazi era. (Source: Wikipedia)

In Vienna, seven terminus stations were built from 1840 onwards for the respective railway lines (Süd-, Ost-, West-, Franz-Josefs-Bahn, Nord- and Nordwestbahn, of which not a single one has survived). They were built in front of the line wall for strategic military reasons. The idea of merging these terminus stations into a single station was alien, as the railway lines were operated by various competing railway companies. They therefore had no interest in a centralised urban solution. A few decades later (for military and commercial reasons), the terminus stations were connected to each other by the connecting lines, the Donauländebahn, the Donauuferbahn and the Vorortelinie and the Stadtbahn. However, there were no regulated transfer options for passenger transport. After the fall of the city wall, there were discussions from 1880 onwards to merge these railway stations into a central station. (Source: WienGeschichteWiki)

 Westbahnhof 

The Orient Express arrived in Vienna on the Western Railway and stopped at  Vienna Westbahnhof . As the station was and still is a terminus station, the train had to be "overturned" before continuing its journey to Istanbul or on the return journey westwards, as this is known in railway terminology: the train had to continue its journey in the opposite direction to that in which it entered the station. Therefore, the locomotive that had been pulling the train up to that point had to be uncoupled and another locomotive coupled to the previous end of the train. The journey from Westbahnhof to the Ostbahn took place via the  connecting railway  and the  Donauländebahn . Until 1938, the train used the Ostbahn branch running north of the Danube from / to Stadlau to / from Bratislava, then the Ostbahn main line via Hegyeshalom to / from Budapest. (Source: WienGeschichteWiki)

Staatsbahnhof Wien

The  Staatsbahnhof  at the former Ghegaplatz in the immediate vicinity of today's Vienna Central Station was the starting point for travellers who wanted to travel directly from Vienna to Constantinople.

After the destruction at the end of the Second World War in 1945, the decision was made to merge the Ostbahnhof with the neighbouring Südbahnhof in one building during reconstruction, although the building substance had remained largely intact. The new station, whose concourse stood on the former Ghegaplatz, was named Südbahnhof from 1956 (previously also incorrectly called Süd-Ost-Bahnhof). On the first floor of the station, facing south-east, were the eastern railway tracks, which were less frequented until 1989 due to the "Iron Curtain", and on the second floor, facing south-west, were the southern railway tracks.

Vienna's third southern railway station was built between 1955 and 1961 according to plans by Heinrich Hrdlicka as the terminus of the eastern and southern lines. The operational functionality was almost perfect, but the representative elegance of the Wilhelminian era was lost in favour of sober functionality. The partial opening took place on 29 September 1956, but the long walking distances to public transport and the more complex operation of a terminus station proved to be a disadvantage in terms of passenger services.

After lengthy discussions about the creation of a central railway station, it was decided in 1995, following the conclusion of an architectural competition, to convert the Südbahnhof into a main station (as a through station). On the evening of 12 December 2009, rail operations in the Südbahnhof reception building were discontinued. Passenger transport on the southern railway was then operated from Vienna-Meidling station. For the Eastern line, a temporary station was built on Arsenalstraße, shortening the platform tracks, and operated until 8 December 2012. The reception building of the Südbahnhof (with the tracks on the east side) was demolished in the first months of 2010. (Source: WienGeschichteWiki)

Since the first Orient Express left the Gare de l'Est in Paris for Constantinople in 1883, the original routes and the stations served at the time have changed, in some cases fundamentally, whether due to wars or various modernisation measures.

The Hungarian capital, with its two magnificent, originally preserved and operational railway stations  West  and  East , is the only station on the classic route of the Orient Express that can still convey its characteristic atmosphere and unadulterated esprit.

Budapest West Railway Station - Nyugati pályaudvar

The station originally came from the Hungarian Central Railway, was later transferred to the Imperial-Royal South-Eastern State Railway and was owned by the Imperial-Royal Private Austro-Hungarian State Railway Company (StEG) at the time of the new construction. This company, which was under French influence, operated a route network of almost 1000 kilometres across the Austro-Hungarian monarchy.

The official StEG tender for the construction of the railway station was won by the Parisian architectural firm "Eiffel & Cie" Gustave Eiffel, which would achieve world fame a few years later with the construction of the Eiffel Tower. The current station building was built between 1874 and 1877 to replace the original station building, which no longer met the requirements of the rapid growth in rail traffic following the Compromise with Hungary in 1867. It was designed as a typical terminus station.

Construction of the main hall began in 1874, whereby the difficulty lay not only in the architecture, but also in not disturbing the railway traffic in the old station hall below, built in 1846. It was decided to build the new, larger hall above the old hall while the railway was in operation. In 1877, the construction of the imposing iron structure was completed and the old station concourse below was demolished.

The large glass façade of the Westbahnhof station with its three sweeping entrance doors is striking. Behind it is the steel and glass central hall designed by architect Gustave Eiffel, which is characterised by its transparency and lightness. The station restaurant, which is now run by an international fast food company, is worthy of note, but has been largely preserved in its original form.

Eiffel used the Polonceau girder developed by a French railway engineer in the first half of the 19th century. This special type of girder was ideal for wide-span station concourses and was used for many famous railway stations, such as the Gare du Nord in Paris.

By the end of the 1980s, the fabric of the building was badly affected by age. However, the city had no money to renovate the building. In 1990, an investor was sought for the former railway station restaurant and found in the fast food group McDonald's. It was not easy to adapt the architecturally interesting premises of the railway station restaurant to the needs of a modern fast food restaurant. However, it was possible to combine the two in an overall concept and take up the typical Budapest coffee house tradition in the form of a McCafé. Café Gerbeaud, one of Budapest's most famous coffee houses, supplies the café with cakes and pastries. (Source: Wikipedia)

East Railway Station - Keleti pályaudvar

The neo-Renaissance terminus station was planned and built between 1881 and 1884 by the railway engineer János Feketeházy and the architect Gyula Rochlitz. When it opened, it was considered one of the most modern railway stations in Central Europe, as it was one of the first to have electric lighting and a central signal box. The façade was restored in 1998. (Source: Wikipedia)

From Budapest to Belgrade

Beograd railway station was built as Belgrade's main railway station between 1881 and 1884 under Prince Milan Obrenović. On 21 August 1884, the railway bridge over the Sava River was completed, which was to serve traffic to Zemun and Pest (the Zemun-Sava Bridge route was completed on 15 September 1888). On 23 August, the station was officially inaugurated with the first train on the Belgrade-Niš line and opened to public traffic on 3 September. Belgrade was thus subsequently connected to Niš (1884), Pest (1884), Skopje (1888), Sofia (1888), Istanbul (1888) and Zagreb (1891). The first train from Pest to Constantinople ran on 12 August 1888.

The Orient Express first departed from Paris on 28 October 1888. On 16 January 1916, the Balkan Express replaced the Orient Express, which was discontinued in 1914. It was introduced for the political, military and business elite and was made up of high-quality sleeping and seating carriages, some of which came from the CIWL's confiscated stock. With the defeat of the Central Powers in the First World War, the Balkan train was discontinued and the CIWL introduced the Simplon-Orient-Express in 1920. Belgrade remained one of the most important stops for this and other long-distance connections to Northern and Western Europe introduced after the Second World War, such as the Hellas Express, the Meridian and the Istanbul Express.

From the early 1970s, a comprehensive reconstruction of Belgrade's railway infrastructure took place in the so-called Belgrade railway junction. The plan was to completely replace the historic railway station. Due to the slow completion of the Belgrade Centre station, which was intended to be the new central station, trains were moved from the old to the new station after decades of parallel operation, with the majority of traffic being transferred in December 2017. After this, the previous Beograd station continued to operate in a reduced form for a few months. During this time, it was used in particular for international long-distance transport, for protocol purposes and for tourism. Ultimately, it is to be converted into a museum. The railway infrastructure of the freight station was also dismantled. The last goods train left Beograd for Rijeka on 9 June 2016. This marked the end of freight transport. Beograd station was finally closed on 30 June 2018. The station hall, which was renovated in 2020, is to serve as a museum of Serbia's medieval history in the future. (Source: Wikipedia)

From Belgrade to Sofia

The  Sićevo Gorge , a river gorge and archaeological site in south-eastern Serbia, is the most prominent local geological and topographical feature formed by the Nišava River. The gorge is located between the towns of Bela Palanka and Niška Banja.

It is 17 kilometres long and 350 to 400 metres deep and has canyon-like structures in some places. The gorge is cut into the Kunovica plateau, between the southern slopes of the Svrljig mountain and the Suva Planina mountain. The surrounding areas are known for their high-quality vineyards. The gorge is home to a quarry, Ostrovica and six villages. The largest, Sićevo, is the namesake of the gorge. (Source: Wikipedia)

The construction of the railway line between Belgrade and Sofia around 1880 as the shortest connection between the two cities placed the highest demands on the engineers involved in terms of routing and tunnel construction.

Sofia Central Station (then still called Sofia Railway Station) was opened on 1 August 1888. This first railway station in Sofia was built for the Zaribrod-Sofia-Wakarel railway line, the first line of the Bulgarian State Railways (Balgarski Darshavvi Zheleznitsi) to be built entirely by Bulgarian engineers. A train from London, travelling via Paris, arrived for the opening ceremony of the station and continued on to Istanbul via Plovdiv and Edirne the following day.

With the opening of Sofia Central Station on 1 August 1888 (12 August 1888 according to the old calendar), the full length of the Zaribrod-Sofia-Wakarel railway line was open to international traffic. This completed the continuous rail link from Western Europe to Istanbul. Since then, the Orient Express has also used this route. The old station building had three waiting rooms for travellers: in the waiting room for first class there were sofas upholstered in red velvet, in second class they were upholstered in green and in third class there were only wooden benches. There was a bathroom for railway staff in the basement of the station building. The station was designed for a city with 100,000 to 150,000 inhabitants. In 1888, the year the railway station opened, Sofia had around 20,000 inhabitants, but it was not until 1910 that the population reached the 100,000 mark. From 1908 to 1912, the station was extended under the new director of the Technical Directorate of the Bulgarian State Railways, Ing Karakashev. It was expected that after the extension, the station would be able to meet the transport requirements for the next 50 years.

After construction of the new station building had already begun in 1971, with the ground-breaking ceremony held on 23 February 1971 by the then Minister of Transport Grigor Stoitschkow, the old station building was completely demolished on 14 April 1974 - the western part of the old station building. The current station building was built between 1971 and 1974 in the Brutalist style and opened on 6 September 1974.

From Sofia via Philippopel to Adrianople

 Trajan Gate 

The Trajan Gate is a historic mountain pass near Ihtiman, Bulgaria. In ancient times, the pass was called Succi. It was later named after the Roman Emperor Trajan, on whose orders a fortress called Stipon was built on the hill above the pass as a symbolic border between the provinces of Thrace and Macedonia. The pass is best known for the great medieval battle of 17 August 986, in which the troops of the Byzantine Emperor Basil II were defeated by the Bulgarian Tsar Samuil, bringing a Byzantine campaign in the Bulgarian territories to a halt. Today, a tunnel of the Trakiya motorway, also known as the Trajan Gate Tunnel, is located near the fortress, 55 kilometres from Sofia.

 Philippopolis  (Plowdiw)

At the end of the 1870s, Plovdiv was connected to the Orient Express line between Istanbul and Sofia.

The ancient theatre is one of the most impressive buildings from Roman times. Discovered by chance during construction work, the theatre took ten years to uncover. A 15 metre thick layer of earth had to be removed in the process. The theatre seats 7,000 spectators in two tiers, each with 14 rows. The names of the city districts were engraved on the benches of each seating area so that each visitor could be seated according to their respective place of residence. (Source: Wikipedia)

The İstanbul Sirkeci-Swilengrad-Sofia railway line, built in the 19th century by the Compagnie des Chemins de fer Orientaux, also runs through the city. After the border between Greece and Turkey was corrected by the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923, the two sections to the west and south of Edirne of the line, which belonged to the Chemin de fer Franco-Hellenique from 1929, ran on Greek territory; only the section a few kilometres long with the  Edirne railway station  was on Turkish territory. Trains from Edirne to Istanbul therefore had to pass through Greek territory. Drug smugglers used this route from the end of the 1960s to enter Greece illegally (the so-called Midnight Express).

Following the tensions with Greece in the wake of the Cyprus crisis, Turkish State Railways (TCDD) built a new railway line from Pehlivanköy via Edirne to the Bulgarian border station Svilengrad, which went into operation in 1971 and now only runs on Turkish territory. The old line was abandoned as the Greek railway had also built a new line exclusively on Greek territory.

The old Ottoman railway station has been restored and is now used as the rectorate and administration building of Trakya Üniversitesi, the  University of Edirne . Edirne was given a new railway station, which also has a loading station for motorail trains. (Source: Wikipedia)

He who knows himself and others Will also recognise here: Orient and Occident Can no longer be separated.

Wer sich selbst und andre kennt Wird auch hier erkennen: Orient und Occident Sind nicht mehr zu trennen.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe,  West-Eastern Diwan 

Byzantium - Constantinople - Istanbul

A longing for the Orient

"Diamonds, pearls, wild animals, exotic spices, colourfully dressed people, foreign religions and glittering dreams from the Arabian Nights - all this fascinates us about the Orient. What began in antiquity with journeys to "Barbaria" developed in the 18th and 19th centuries into an image of longing for an ideal world. Western travellers from Europe believed and hoped to find the "treasures of wisdom" in the East." (Source: WamS, Martina Schäfer).

The city on the Bosporus with an estimated 16 million inhabitants at the crossroads of continents, cultures and religions can look back on 2700 years of history. For almost 1600 years, it served successively as the capital of the Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman Empires. As the seat of the ecumenical patriarch and - until 1924 - the Ottoman caliphate, Istanbul was also an important centre of Orthodox Christianity and Sunni Islam for centuries.

The cityscape is characterised by buildings from Greco-Roman antiquity, medieval Byzantium and modern Turkey. Palaces are just as much a part of it as numerous mosques, cemevleri, churches and synagogues. Due to its uniqueness, parts of the historic city centre have been declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site. (Source: Wikipedia)

At the destination

Long-distance rail transport is extremely modest for a city of this size. There are two long-distance railway stations, from each of which only a few trains run each day. One reason for this is the dominant role of bus transport in Turkey. Sirkeci station, the historic terminus of the Orient Express, is the final stop for all railway lines on the European side. Long-distance trains operated by the Turkish state railway company TCDD to Bucharest, Sofia and Belgrade as well as to the Uzunköprü border station run here in 2012. From Haydarpaşa station on the Asian shore of the Bosporus, the starting point of the historic Baghdad railway, TCDD trains run several times a day to Ankara, less frequently to other destinations in Anatolia, and once a week to Tehran and Aleppo. (Source: Wikipedia)

 Sirkeci  Railway Station

Istanbul Sirkeci station was a Turkish State Railways (TCDD) station in Sirkeci, a neighbourhood in the European part of Istanbul (Turkey). International, domestic and regional trains travelled westwards from this station. This terminus station became famous above all as the terminus of the Orient Express.

After the Crimean War, it was decided that a railway link between Europe and Istanbul had to be built. The first contract was signed in January 1857 by a British parliamentarian named Labro. However, this contract was cancelled three months later as it was unable to provide the necessary investment capital. Similar contracts in 1860 and 1868, signed by British and Belgian entrepreneurs, ended with the same result.

On 17 April 1869, the concession for the "Rumeli Railway" was awarded to the Compagnie des Chemins de fer Orientaux by Baron Hirsch (actually Moritz Freiherr Hirsch auf Gereuth), a banker from Bavaria. The project envisaged a route from Istanbul via Edirne, Plovdiv and Sarajevo to the banks of the Sava. Construction of the first 15 km from the western outskirts of Istanbul to Halkalı began on 4 June 1870 and was completed on 4 January 1871. An extension of the line to Sirkeci as the starting point was demanded because Yeşilköy was too far away from the commercial centre of Eminönü. The first option for the line was a route from Beyazıt down to the banks of the Golden Horn. The Ottoman Sultan Abd-ul-Aziz decided and allowed the line to run along the coastline of the Marmara Sea, adjacent to the walls of the lower garden of the Topkapi Palace. This extension of the line was completed on 21 July 1872. In 1873, a terminus was built in Sirkeci, which was labelled "temporary" at the time.

Construction of a new building began on 11 February 1888 and the terminus station, originally named Müşir Ahmet Paşa Station, was opened on 3 November 1890, replacing the temporary station built in 1873. The architect of the project was August Jasmund, a Prussian building official who was sent to Istanbul by the government to study Ottoman architecture. The construction of the 1200 square metre station complex is one of the greatest examples of European Orientalism, which in turn influenced the designs of other architects. The building was considered extremely modern at the time due to its gas lighting and winter heating.

In the 1950s and 1960s, the station restaurant became a meeting place for journalists, authors and other members of the media elite.

The building is largely preserved in its original condition. However, the area surrounding the station has changed considerably since 1890.

In connection with the Marmaray project, a railway tunnel between Europe and Asia, an underground station was built under the existing station on 29 October 2013. The historic railway station was closed to traffic due to construction work in connection with Marmaray. The last remaining international train was the overnight Istanbul-Sofia Express with coaches to/from Bucharest. This train - as well as all long-distance rail services from Istanbul in a westerly direction - ends and starts from the suburban railway station Halkali. There is a feeder bus service between Halkali and Sirkeci. The Turkish Ministry of Transport would like to reopen the station for local and tourist transport.

There is a small railway museum in one room of the station, which describes the history of the railway line to Istanbul. A German-made B-coupled steam locomotive has been erected in front of the station as a memorial. (Source: Wikipedia)

 Pera Palace Hotel 

The Pera Palace Hotel, in Istanbul is one of the remaining large railway hotels from the 19th century.

Around 1900, the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits, operator of a number of European luxury trains, including the Orient Express, made it its business to offer its clientele suitable accommodation at the destinations of its international connections. In the last two decades of the 19th century, it therefore built up a hotel chain through a subsidiary. In addition to the Ghezirah Palace in Cairo, the Hôtel de la Plage in Ostend, the Hôtels Terminus in Bordeaux and Marseille and later the Grand Hôtel des Wagons-Lits in Beijing, this also included the luxury hotel Pera Palas, built in 1892 by the Turkish-French architect Alexandre Vallaury (1850-1921) in the historicist style in Istanbul's European district of Pera. The building with a view of the Bosphorus, where monarchs, heads of state and captains of industry, among others, stayed, has been largely preserved with its neo-Rococo façade and interior furnishings. (Source: Wikipedia)

Across the Bosporus

The  Bosporus  (ancient Greek Βόσπορος 'cattle ford', from ancient Greek βοῦς boũs 'cattle, ox' and ancient Greek πόρος póros 'way, ford'; Turkish Boğaz 'gorge', resp. Karadeniz Boğazı for 'mouth of the Black Sea'; obsolete 'Strait of Constantinople') is a strait between Europe and Asia that connects the Black Sea (in antiquity: Pontos Euxeinos) with the Sea of Marmara (in antiquity: Propontis); it therefore represents a section of the southern inner Eurasian border. The city of Istanbul is located on both sides of the Bosphorus and its geography is significantly shaped by it. The Bosphorus has a length of around 30 kilometers and a width of 700 to 2500 meters. In the middle, the depth varies between 36 and 124 meters (at Bebek). On the western side of the Bosphorus is the Golden Horn, an elongated bay and a natural harbor that has been used for a long time. (Source: Wikipedia)

The  Baghdad Railway  is a railroad line built in the former Ottoman Empire from Konya (now in Turkey) to Baghdad (now in Iraq) between 1903 and 1918, covering around 3/4 of its total length of around 1600 kilometers. It was not completed until after the Ottoman Empire ended in 1918. The missing section, which was located in the subsequently created state of Iraq and was around 400 km long, was not built until the 1930s. After 1918, less than half of the railroad line remained in the successor state of Turkey. Around 150 km of track (parallel to the main line in Turkey via Aleppo) is located in present-day Syria and around 840 km of track in Iraq. Including the Istanbul-Konya Anatolian Railway and connecting lines in Syria (including from Aleppo to Damascus) and in Iraq, the Baghdad Railway has a length of 3205 km. The railroad is an engineering feat and one of the most complex infrastructure projects of its time. (Source: Wikipedia)

Haydarpaşa railway station

The former terminus station is located on the Asian side of the Bosphorus, within the Haydarpaşa port area. The combined freight and port station is located to the north of the passenger station. Haydarpaşa station was a stopover for the Bosphorus ferries Eminönü-Kadıköy and Karaköy-Kadıköy.

The station was built by the Philipp Holzmann company. The plans for the station building were drawn up by the German architects Otto Ritter von Kühlmann and Hellmuth Cuno. The station was the starting point of the Anatolian Railway, from which the Baghdad Railway later branched off. Construction began on May 30, 1906. Otto Linnemann from Frankfurt am Main designed all the windows in the station concourse. The inauguration took place on August 19, 1908.

The Turkish railroad lines to Anatolia, Iran, Iraq and Syria began at Haydarpaşa station. It has been the starting point of the Taurus Express since 1930.

On November 28, 2010, a fire broke out during repair work, destroying the roof and the fourth floor of the station building. The roof was then only repaired in a makeshift manner. Long-distance services to Haydarpaşa station were suspended at the beginning of February 2012. In connection with the Marmaray project, a tunnel under the Bosphorus, the station also lost its function as the terminus of the suburban railroad to the eastern suburbs of Istanbul on the Anatolian Railway from 2014.

The future of the station building was uncertain for a long time; the tracks were used to park damaged vehicles. The initial plan was to build a museum in one part and a hotel and shopping center in another. This plan was abandoned in spring 2018. The station was to be restored for passenger traffic by the fall of 2019. Both high-speed trains and other long-distance trains, as well as the S-Bahn, were to call at the station again. However, this has not yet been implemented. (Source: Wikipedia)

From Constantinople to Konya

The  Anatolian Railway  with lines to Ankara (1892) and Konya (1896) was operated by the Anatolian Railway Company - Société du Chemin de fer Ottoman d'Anatolie (CFOA), a company founded under the leadership of Deutsche Bank. Its first director was Otto von Kühlmann. (Source: Wikipedia)

The beginnings of the Baghdad Railway

By the 19th century, the Ottoman Empire had finally fallen behind the major European powers and had lost most of its territory in the Balkans, pushing its capital Constantinople to the periphery of its territory. As developments in Europe and America showed, railroads formed the basis for economic progress and expansion. Following these examples, Sultan Abdülhamid II hoped to use the railroad as a powerful, efficient and fast transport system to open up his empire economically as far as the Persian Gulf and to stabilize it politically, as major troop movements in the Ottoman Empire took months.

The Ottoman Empire was heavily financially dependent on France through major French banks, which controlled the Banque Impériale Ottomane, and the Administration de la Dette Publique Ottomane, the public debt administration. The Ottomans had had positive experiences with the German Empire through the German military missions, among other things. As German interests in the Ottoman Empire were limited to the economy and, in contrast to British and French colonial policy, were not aimed at territorial gains, this seemed less risky. Therefore, the High Porte wanted the railway construction to be given to a German corporation.

In Germany, the project received mixed reviews. Deutsche Bank was initially not very fond of it. After all, it was interested in the profitability of the railway and later in the wealth of raw materials in Mesopotamia, after large deposits of crude oil had been found there. The imperial government and not least the Foreign Office hoped to gain influence in this zone, which was otherwise dominated by British and French interests. In addition, there was the prestige aspect for German foreign policy, whose successes at this time fell far short of its own ambitions. Kaiser Wilhelm II personally campaigned strongly for the railway construction and sent a bilingual telegram of congratulations to the construction workers every time a section of the railway was completed. At the same time, new markets were to be opened up for German products. German policy here was in direct competition with French and, above all, British interests.

From 1899, on-site expeditions were organised to investigate the construction and route of the line. As much of the route ran through untouched nature and scientifically unexplored areas, significant archaeological, botanical and zoological discoveries were made during construction. On 27 July 1903, construction work began on the line, which was scheduled to last ten years. The railway was built with the significant involvement of German companies - above all the construction company Philipp Holzmann AG, whose construction manager was Otto Riese (Chairman of the Executive Board). In addition to the track work, Philipp Holzmann AG was also responsible for the construction of many railway stations and, above all, large railway stations. The rails were supplied by Friedrich Krupp AG, and the locomotives came from Borsig, Cail, Hanomag, Henschel and Maffei. At times, over 35,000 workers were employed in the construction of the railway, often under extreme and dangerous conditions. "The railway stands for the suffering of Armenian forced labourers." The mountain sections in particular caused considerable difficulties, which repeatedly presented the construction engineers, such as Heinrich August Meißner, with major challenges. The crossing of the Cilician Gap and the Taurus Mountains in Asia Minor are the greatest achievements of this railway construction. The route through the Taurus rises to a maximum height of 1,478 metres. In addition to 37 tunnels over a length of twenty kilometres, which had to be blasted through the rock, bridges and viaducts, including the Gavurdere Viaduct, had to be built. In 1908, the German battle painter Theodor Rocholl travelled through the construction area and produced paintings of individual construction sites on behalf of Deutsche Bank. From 1904 to 1910, further construction of the railway was suspended due to the Young Turk revolution and the associated political reorientation of the Ottoman state. In 1911, the project to continue construction to Basra was abandoned and the concession for the line from Toprakkale to İskenderun was granted. In 1912, construction began from Baghdad to the north under the direction of Heinrich August Meissner Pasha.

Extending beyond Baghdad, this connection would have been the fastest and most economical transport route between Europe and India. However, it was precisely this that brought the railway into the focus of the European superpowers' Orient policy, which was reinforced by German propaganda that spoke of a Berlin-Baghdad railway.

Britain, France and Russia saw the project as competition in the Middle East. Great Britain was suspicious of the Baghdad railway as an instrument of the German Empire, as it would facilitate the rapid access of a foreign superpower to the vicinity of its Indian possessions and enable a German military base in the Persian Gulf. The completed railway line would also have increased German access to the Arab region. The Baghdad Railway was also a competitor to British and Russian infrastructure projects: the British-controlled Suez Canal and Russian railway projects in Iran. The Baghdad Railway thus contributed to the rapprochement between Great Britain, France and Russia on the one hand and was a further cause of tension between Germany and the neighbouring world powers on the other. (Source: Wikipedia)

From Konya to Aleppo

The most famous train on the Baghdad Railway was the  Taurus Express  (Toros Ekspresi), which has been running since 15 February 1930. However, passengers on the continuous service between Istanbul and Baghdad initially had to change to cars between Nusaybin and Kirkuk, as the continuous railway line was not completed until 1940. On 17 July 1940, the train was able to run continuously for the first time and consisted of sleeping cars of the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits (CIWL) in its continuous section. The seating carriages were provided by the participating railway companies, primarily the TCDD.

The CIWL gave up operating its sleeping cars on the Taurus Express in 1972, and the TCDD took over this service. Due to political tensions, the train has only operated as an intra-Turkish connection between Istanbul and Gaziantep since 1982, but ran a sleeping car to Aleppo in Syria once a week. A connection from Mosul to Gaziantep was resumed on 16 February 2010, and the opposite direction was to be served from 18 February. After the start of the civil war in Syria, all rail connections from Turkey to Syria and Iraq were cancelled.

Adana is on the Baghdad railway. There is an international train to Aleppo once a week.

Financial and political difficulties as well as technical problems - particularly when tunnelling through the Taurus - delayed construction progress before the First World War. When the Ottoman Empire entered the war on the side of the Central Powers, construction work was pushed ahead for strategic military reasons.

Due to the British Empire's naval supremacy in the Mediterranean, it was not possible to transport goods from Istanbul to Syria by ship. The railway played an important role in the war effort because the German Empire wanted to use it to make itself independent of oil imports from the USA. In the event of a naval blockade, the loss of oil supplies could have been decisive for the war. For the Ottoman Empire, the railway was decisive for the war because it was the only way to ensure that the southern front on the Suez Canal was adequately supplied with troops and weapons and to effectively combat the Arab insurgents. In 1914, only 1,094 kilometres had been completed. The gaps, mainly due to the unfinished tunnels through the Taurus Mountains, were bridged by narrow-gauge field railways with a track gauge of 600 mm, which meant reloading all goods each time.

From October 1915, the railway served as a means of transport for the systematic deportation of Armenians from their settlement areas towards the Syrian Desert in the course of the Armenian genocide. The construction of the railway was delayed due to the expulsion of Armenian experts and workers; there was also a lack of Armenian doctors in the health service. (Source: Wikipedia)

Aleppo

Aleppo is one of the oldest cities in the region and occupies a strategic point between the Mediterranean and the Euphrates. It was originally built on a group of hills in a wide fertile valley on both sides of the river Quwaiq.

It was a cold winter morning in Syria. At five o'clock in the morning, the train was waiting at Aleppo railway station, grandly referred to in the timetables as the 'Taurus Express'. It consisted of a kitchen and dining car, a sleeping car and two ordinary coaches.

In 1906, Aleppo received a railway connection to Damascus via the Hejaz Railway, and in 1912 to Istanbul and Baghdad via the Baghdad Railway.

The  Citadel of Aleppo  stands on a hill (tell) in the centre of the old town of Aleppo in northern Syria. It is considered to be one of the oldest and largest fortresses in the world. The earliest traces of settlement date back to the middle of the third millennium BC. The site was inhabited by many civilisations, including the Greeks, Byzantines, Ayyubids and Mamluks.

Most of today's buildings and defences probably date back to the Ayyubid period in the 13th century. The citadel, which dominates the old town, is a tourist attraction and a site of excavations and archaeological studies. It has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1986. The citadel was badly damaged during the civil war. (Source: Wikipedia)

From Aleppo to Baghdad

In 1918, the route between Istanbul and Nusaybin and between Baghdad and Samarra was completed over a length of around 2,000 kilometres. The lines were originally intended to meet in Nusaybin and be connected there. Parts of the railway network had already been destroyed during the war. The railway was initially transferred to French and British administration according to the borders of the French and British occupation of the former Ottoman territory. In 1920, the Kemalist government took over parts of the railway from the British military administration.

After the First World War, the political map was reorganised. The Ottoman Empire was divided up and Mustafa Kemal proclaimed the Republic of Turkey on 29 October 1923. As a result, the Baghdad railway, whose line stretched across three new states (Turkey, Syria and Iraq), initially remained unfinished. The gap comprised around 485 kilometres of track, 135 kilometres of which had already been laid. Passengers had to change to buses or donkey carts on the sections of the line that were still without railway service.

It was not until 1936 that Syria and Iraq began to close the last gap. On 15 July 1940, the railway line was fully operational. 52 years after the concession was granted, the first "Taurus Express" from Istanbul reached its destination, Baghdad.

The line was later extended to the southern Iraqi harbour city of Basra. The Baghdad Railway thus connected the Bosphorus and the Persian Gulf. However, due to the tense political relations between the neighbouring states of Turkey, Syria and Iraq, regular, continuous rail traffic remained rare. In addition, the strategic and economic importance of the railway line was quickly diminished by other means of transport shortly after its completion. (Source: Wikipedia)

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