The "Nord Express" (Northern Express) was a train service introduced in 1896 by Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits, a Belgian night train company. It left Paris and travelled via Brussels, Cologne, Hanover, Berlin, Konigsberg (now Kaliningrad) and Dünaburg to Saint Petersburg.
The founders of CIWL wanted to establish a direct link between Saint Petersburg and Lisbon to connect with ocean liners to America.
Passengers from Russia had to change once in East Prussia at the German/Russian border because Russian railway tracks are of a wider gauge than those in Western Europe. In Paris there was a connecting service to the Sud Express (Southern Express) to Lisbon. This train service enabled people to travel across Europe in what was, by the standards of the time, a very fast and comfortable manner.
After World War I the train was diverted to Warsaw instead to Saint Petersburg. After World War II the "iron curtain" and air travel caused the end to this famous train.
Since World War II the name Nord Express has been used for the ordinary night train between Paris and Copenhagen. In 2007 it was shortened further and diverted again such that it now runs between Paris and Hamburg, taking 10.5 hours.
Read more about Nord Express: In The Arts
Famous quotes containing the word express:
“Towards him they bend
With awful reverence prone; and as a God
Extoll him equal to the highest in Heav’n:
Nor fail’d they to express how much they prais’d,
That for the general safety he despis’d
His own: for neither do the Spirits damn’d
Loose all thir vertue; lest bad men should boast
Thir specious deeds on earth, which glory excites,
Or close ambition varnisht o’er with zeal.”
—John Milton (1608–1674)