The Orient-Express is exhibiting in Singapore! Six years after its success in Paris, the event "Once upon a time the Orient-Express" opens its doors to the Asian public. But making a train travel cla ...

Orient-Express the new adventure

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The Orient-Express, Gare de l'Est in Paris, in 2019. AFP

By: Marina Mielczarek

7 min

The Orient-Express is exhibiting in Singapore!

Six years after its success in Paris, the event "Once upon a time the Orient-Express" opens its doors to the Asian public.

But taking a train classified as a Historic Monument is in itself quite an adventure.

But beyond the two wagons and the locomotive which served to link Europe to the Orient, this exhibition begins another adventure, the Orient-Express, which becomes a new French luxury label.

Publicity

Orient-Express mugs, Orient-Express scarves, Orient-Express pens in Singapore,

goodies

, these souvenir items from the Once Upon a Time Orient-Express exhibition, are being snapped up like hot cakes.

This train stopped its Paris Istanbul connections in 1977 but its fame has never stopped traveling.

Merchants, businessmen and celebrities

The best known of the passengers remain Agatha Christie and her archaeologist husband, Max Mallowan, who took the Orient Express to go to excavation sites.

But the train also transported the Russian writer Leon Tolstoy, the German actress Marlene Dietrich, the British adventurer Lawrence of Arabia, the American writer Ernest Hemingway, the French milliner Coco Channel, the Scottish actor Sean Connery or even the signatories of the 1918 armistice.

The Orient-Express a rolling palace

Claude Mollard, the curator of the exhibition, likes to say that in Asia, visitors are fond of French know-how, the Orient-Express is a palace on wheels!

It's simple to say, as easy as it is difficult to transport… a train to Singapore.

“

During the trip, on the boats

,” explains Claude Mollard, “

we had to cover the Orient-Express cars and the locomotive with large stretched plastic sheeting.
The danger is the rain and the air outside but also inside, the humidity could shatter the woodwork of Finland and the mahogany panels of Cuba.
Several parts as well as glassworks have been reattached and well protected.
And I must tell you that in Singapore, it is a tropical climate.
We had to invent and build a building with a special covering of 2000m².
Not only effective against temperature variations, but also from an aesthetic point of view, resembling the Gare du Nord in Paris!

In 2021, the Orient-Express becomes a luxury label

This is the first time that a train classified as a Historic Monument has traveled outside France.

This exhibition serves as a hook for a new adventure.

We are going to resuscitate the Orient Express spirit.

First step, the Orient-Express brand which becomes a luxury brand.

Under this label, hotels will be built in Asia, Europe, the Middle East and America.

Midnight blue and gold from the Orient to conquer Asia and Africa

The range of Orient-Express accessories was designed after diving into the photographic archives, images of travelers and the personnel of the Orient-Express.

Today the catalog includes bags, glasses, handbooks ... And private experiences for seminars or meetings on demand in a restored train, made up of old original Orient-Express wagons.

Incredible hotels

“

The creator of the Orient-Express train had incredible hotels in Egypt!

»According to Guillaume De-Saint-Lager, Vice-President of Orient-Express.

The Orient-Express train was invented by the Belgian Georges Nagelmackers, also founder of the Compagnie internationale des wagons-lits.

What is less known is that the stops between Paris, Venice, Istanbul or Constantinople, the train stops were used to sleep passengers in Art Deco hotels and to supply the restaurant's kitchens with fresh products from local markets. .

Today, the exhibition public admires the organization in the absence of refrigerators (which did not exist at the time).

In January 2021, opening of the first Orient-Express hotel

Guillaume De-Saint-Lager, Vice-President of Orient-Express, will inaugurate this first Orient-Express hotel in Bangkok, Thailand.

“

Our Orient-Express brand blends the past with a reminder of the blue and gold colors of this prestigious train, while placing it in the present.
We meet the expectations of new generations with this spirit of adventure between the West and the East.
In China and in Asia in general, the success and demand for this mythical train encouraged us.
Africa is also a prominent market.
The hotels in Cairo, Egypt, where some passengers of the Orient-Express slept, it is also this link that we can revive.

After Singapore, the Once Upon a Time Orient-Express exhibition will move to China, Venice and Saudi Arabia.

Transport column - Orient-Express the new adventure