Two interesting train sightings

[Carolinian]

Recently on returning from XXII Economic Forum in Krynica, Poland, I had a bit of extra time and the air routings were not great so I decided to return by train. One leg was Budapest to Bucharest, a train I have taken quite a few times in the past but not in the last few years. Two platforms over from my train in Budapest Keleti station was a steam locomotive hooked to a line of vintage rail cars with its steam up, apparently ready to head out on its run. I knew they did occaisional steam exercusions out of Keleti but this was the first time I had ever seen one of the trains ready to go. Then on arrving in Bucharest, on the track several platforms over was a line of very elegant rail coaches hooked to a modern locomotive. I guessed what it was and went over to take a look. Sure enough, it was the Venice-Simplon Orient Express. The original Orient Express route was Paris to Istanbul by way of Munich, Salzburg, Vienna, Budapest, and Bucharest. The company that refurbished the historic 19th century cars to create this luxury train had been running it from Paris to Venice, but the placards on the side of the cars of this train showed its routing as Venice - Salzburg - Vienna - Budapest - Bucharest - Istanbul, so it follows much of the eastern portion of the original route. Now, if they could just have used that steam engine from Budapest to pull the Orient Express, that would have added to the charm. Sadly, the old historic Istanbul station where the original Orient Express terminated, recently closed to be replaced by a bland underground station.

[Hobbitess]

That's a neat sighting -- and nice that you knew what you were seeing! You clearly know a lot more about the historic trains than I do -- all I knew about the Orient Express is from literature! I've been looking into historic trains a bit more since I've started thinking about a trip to Cuyahoga Valley National Park, which has a scenic railway route through it, but I am still woefully ignorant.

Still, I did know the Orient Express was a real thing, and have always wondered if the Hogwarts Express in Harry Potter was not influenced by the Orient Express -- can't find any evidence of that, but J.K. Rowling has said there's likely a Wizard version of it:

Although these are never mentioned in the book, I like to think that it is possible to take a version of the Orient Express off to wizard-only villages in continental Europe (try platform seven and a half), and that other platforms may be opened on an as-required-basis, for instance for large, one-off events such as Celestina Warbeck concerts (see your ticket for details).
JKR interview

And of course the Orient Express (Northern Belle) that starts in London goes right past Alnwick Castle, the one used in the movies as Hogwarts, but how that route is related to the "real" one (Paris to Istanbul) I haven't a clue.

As a child I assumed the Orient Express went clear across the Asian continent (or that they were aiming for it) -- I think it got mixed in my head with the one Phineas Fogg takes across India. After all, "the Orient" is China, Japan, Korea, and that area, right? That seems to be the logic in Michael Palin's Around the World in 80 Days series as well; the "Oriental Express" chapter is Singapore to Shanghai.

I was terribly disappointed to discover the train route ended long before Fogg got on his train (and he was about five years too early, too). On poking around on the Internet, seems it wasn't as glamorous as Hollywood indicated, even in it's heyday -- the Simplon Orient Express in the 1930s had the luxury sleeper cars, but the original route had the same sleepers you'd find anywhere. But Christie's story was based on the Simplon, and Hollywood luxury is always way out of line with reality, so whatever. I also had no idea it was so tiny -- just four sleeper cars with baggage cars at either end! Which is on par with the passenger trains around here, so I'd always assumed trains in their heyday had far more passenger cars than that, especially since we've got double-deckers and they're not sleepers.

Maybe if I'd read or seen Murder on the Orient Express or Graham Greene's Stamboul Train, they would have straightened me out on these issues.