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58-530: Following Los Angeles' winning the right to be the western terminus of the transcontinental railroad , San Diego's civic leaders proposed the Plank Road to ensure their city became the hub of Southern California's road network rather than Los Angeles . Among those promoters was businessman and road builder "Colonel" Ed Fletcher who accepted a challenge from the Los Angeles Examiner to run

116-634: A TGV from Paris. On 14 December 2009, the Orient Express ceased to operate entirely and the route disappeared from European railway timetables, a "victim of high-speed trains and cut-rate airlines". In contemporary times, the legacy of the Orient Express has been revived through private ventures like the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express , initiated by James Sherwood in 1982, which offers nostalgic journeys through Europe in restored 1920s and 1930s CIWL carriages, including

174-713: A bulwark against potential incursions by the United States. Subsequently, two other transcontinental lines were built in Canada: the Canadian Northern Railway (CNoR) opened another line to the Pacific in 1915, and the combined Grand Trunk Pacific Railway (GTPR)/ National Transcontinental Railway (NTR) system opened in 1917 following the completion of the Quebec Bridge , although its line to

232-488: A chain of Orient Express-branded luxury hotels, licensed from SNCF, owner of the Orient Express branding. The chain was renamed Belmond in 2014 when the branding license ended. In 2017, Accor purchased a 50% stake in the Orient Express brand from SNCF for the right to use the name. In 2018, Accor began renovation work on 17 CIWL carriages from the defunct Nostalgie Istanbul Orient Express , which date back to

290-664: A complete transcontinental link exists from Arica, Chile , to La Paz , Bolivia, to Buenos Aires, but this trans-Andean crossing is for freight only. On December 6, 2017 the Brazilian President Michel Temer and his Bolivian counterpart Evo Morales signed an agreement for an Atlantic - Pacific railway. The construction will start in 2019 and will be finished in 2024. The new railway is planned to be 3750 km in length. There are two possible tracks in discussion: Both have an Atlantic end in Santos , Brazil but

348-518: A connecting service from London to Folkestone on the British Pullman , using similarly restored vintage British Pullman cars, but it was announced in April 2023 that due to complications ensuing from Brexit this would cease, and travelers from London would have to take Eurostar to Paris in order to join the Orient Express. The Venice Simplon-Orient-Express operates from March to December and

406-459: A connection between Puerto San José and Puerto Barrios in Guatemala, but ceased passenger service to Puerto San José in 1989. A third Central American inter-oceanic railroad began operation in 1910 as a connection between Puntarenas and Limón in 1,067 mm ( 3 ft 6 in ) gauge. It currently (2019) sees no passenger service. Orient Express The Orient Express

464-587: A convenient connection to the Strasbourg-Paris TGV , but due to the less flexible prices the route became less attractive. In the final years through coaches between Vienna and Karlsruhe (continuing first to Dortmund , then to Amsterdam , and finally to Frankfurt ) were attached. The last train with the name Orient-Express (now with a hyphen) departed from Vienna on 10 December 2009, and one day later from Strasbourg. On 13 December 2021, an ÖBB Nightjet train began running three times per week on

522-550: A peaceful Confucian model of protest. The strike began with the Summer Solstice in June, 1867 and lasted for eight days. The Transcontinental Railroad required land and a complex federal policy for purchasing, granting, conveying land. Some of these land-related acts included: George J. Gould attempted to assemble a truly transcontinental system in the 1900s. The line from San Francisco, California , to Toledo, Ohio ,

580-522: A road race in October 1912 to determine the best route between Southern California and Phoenix . A reporter with the paper was given a 24-hour head start in Los Angeles; Fletcher would proceed from San Diego. Fletcher elected to traverse the constantly shifting sand dunes using a team of horses to pull his automobile through the sand, and won the race in a seemingly impossible 19.5 hours. Buoyed by

638-470: A through sleeping car from Paris to Bucharest was only operated until 1982, and also a through seating car was only operated seasonally. This meant that, as Paris–Budapest and Vienna–Bucharest coaches were running overlapped, a journey was only possible with changing carriages – despite the unchanged name and numbering of the train. In 1991 the Budapest-Bucharest leg of the train was discontinued,

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696-502: A transcontinental railroad in the United States was presented to Congress by Asa Whitney in 1845. A series of transcontinental railroads built over the last third of the 19th century created a nationwide transportation network that united the country by rail. The first of these, the 3,103 km (1,928 mi) "Pacific Railroad" , was built by the Central Pacific Railroad and Union Pacific Railroad , as well as

754-646: Is aimed at leisure travellers. Tickets start at US$ 3,262 per person and it operates on multiple different routes most notably Paris - Istanbul via Vienna and Budapest . Despite its name, the train runs via the Brenner Pass instead of the Simplon tunnel. Belmond also offers a similarly themed luxury train in Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand, called the Eastern and Oriental Express . Sherwood also operated

812-470: Is contiguous railroad trackage, that crosses a continental land mass and has terminals at different oceans or continental borders. Such networks can be via the tracks of either a single railroad or over those owned or controlled by multiple railway companies along a continuous route. Although Europe is crisscrossed by railways, the railroads within Europe are usually not considered transcontinental, with

870-718: The California Gold Rush . Over the years the railway played a key role in the construction and the subsequent operation of the Panama Canal , due to its proximity to the canal. Currently, the railway operates under the private administration of the Panama Canal Railroad Company, and its upgraded capacity complements the cargo traffic through the Panama Canal. A second Central American inter-oceanic railroad began operation in 1908 as

928-625: The Isthmus of Panama , when that area was still part of Colombia . (Panama split off from Colombia in 1903 and became the independent Republic of Panama ). By spanning the isthmus, the line thus became the first railroad to completely cross any part of the Americas and physically connect ports on the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans . Given the tropical rain forest environment, the terrain, and diseases such as malaria and cholera , its completion

986-609: The Orient Express , the Simplon Orient Express , and also the Arlberg Orient Express , which ran via the Arlberg railway between Zürich and Innsbruck to Budapest, with sleeper cars running onwards from there to Bucharest and Athens . During this time, the Orient Express acquired its reputation for comfort and luxury, carrying sleeping cars with permanent service and restaurant cars known for

1044-791: The Panic of 1907 strangled the plans before the Little Kanawha section in West Virginia could be finished. The Alphabet Route was completed in 1931, providing the portion of this line east of the Mississippi River . With the merging of the railroads, only the Union Pacific Railroad and the BNSF Railway remain to carry the entire route. The completion of Canada's first transcontinental railway with

1102-585: The Simplon Orient Express . This was replaced in 1962 by a slower service called the Direct Orient Express , which ran daily cars from Paris to Belgrade, and twice weekly services from Paris to Istanbul and Athens. In 1971, the Wagon-Lits company stopped running carriages itself and making revenues from a ticket supplement. Instead, it sold or leased all its carriages to the various national railway companies, but continued to provide staff for

1160-542: The Trans-Siberian Railway even have passenger trains going from one end to the other. A transcontinental railroad in the United States is any continuous rail line connecting a location on the U.S. Pacific coast with one or more of the railroads of the nation's eastern trunk line rail systems operating between the Missouri or Mississippi Rivers and the U.S. Atlantic coast. The first concrete plan for

1218-623: The Western Pacific Railroad (1862-1870) , to link the San Francisco Bay at Alameda, California , with the nation's existing eastern railroad network at Omaha, Nebraska / Council Bluffs, Iowa — thereby creating the world's second transcontinental railroad when it was completed from Omaha to Alameda on September 6, 1869. (The first transcontinental railroad was the Panama Railroad of 1855.) Its construction

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1276-637: The Bulgarian–Turkish border from 1951 to 1952 prevented services running to Istanbul during that time. As the Iron Curtain fell across Europe, the service continued to run, but the Communist nations increasingly replaced the Wagon-Lits cars with carriages run by their own railway services. By 1962, the original Orient Express and Arlberg Orient Express had stopped running, leaving only

1334-642: The Pacific ends are in Ilo and Matarani in Peru. Another longer Transcontinental freight-only railroad linking Lima , Peru, to Rio de Janeiro , Brazil is under development. The first railroad to directly connect two oceans (although not by crossing a broad "continental" land mass ) was the Panama Canal Railway . Opened in 1855, this 77 km (48 mi) line was designated instead as an "inter-oceanic" railroad crossing Country at its narrowest point,

1392-885: The Pacific opened in 1914. The CNoR, GTPR, and NTR were nationalized to form the Canadian National Railway , which currently is now Canada's largest transcontinental railway, with lines running all the way from the Pacific Coast to the Atlantic Coast. There is activity to revive the connection between Valparaíso and Santiago in Chile and Mendoza , Argentina, through the Transandino project. Mendoza has an active connection to Buenos Aires . The old Transandino began in 1910 and ceased passenger service in 1978 and freight 4 years later. Technically

1450-882: The Paris-Vienna route, although it is not branded as Orient Express. One of the last known CIWL teak sleeping cars from the period before the First World War has been rotting away for decades on the Amfikleia station site in Greece. In 1976, the Swiss travel company Intraflug AG first rented, then later bought several CIWL-carriages. They were operated as the Nostalgic Istanbul Orient Express by Seattle-based Society Expeditions. The route went first from Zürich to Istanbul , following

1508-462: The Plank Road and interpretive display lie approximately three miles/5.4 km west of the Sand Hills interchange. The monument's largest feature is a 1500-foot/457-meter-long replica of the road created in the early 1970s out of existing fragments. California Historical Landmark number 845 reads: Transcontinental railroad A transcontinental railroad or transcontinental railway

1566-523: The Plank Road remain. They are protected under the jurisdiction of the Bureau of Land Management as an Area of Critical Environmental Concern . The fragments are both a California Historical Landmark and eligible for inclusion in the National Register of Historic Places . Remnants of the Plank Road may be seen at the west end of Grays Well Road, a frontage road south of I-8. A monument to

1624-553: The Plank Road was 6.5 miles/10.4 km. Work ended nearly two months later on April 4. Though traffic and maintenance crews who cleared the wooden road with mule-drawn scrapers soon took its toll on the planking, the road was considered a success. In June 1915, the California State Highway Commission assumed responsibility for the Plank Road as part of the road system linking Southern California with Arizona. A second, more sophisticated Plank Road

1682-537: The carriages. 1976 saw the withdrawal of the Paris–Athens direct service, and in 1977, the Direct Orient Express was withdrawn completely, with the last Paris–Istanbul service running on 19 May of that year. The withdrawal of the Direct Orient Express was thought by many to signal the end of the Orient Express as a whole, but in fact a service under this name continued to run from Paris to Bucharest as before (via Strasbourg, Munich, Vienna, and Budapest). However,

1740-681: The driving of the Last Spike at Craigellachie, British Columbia , on November 7, 1885, was an important milestone in Canadian history . Between 1881 and 1885, the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) completed a line that spanned from the port of Montreal to the Pacific coast, fulfilling a condition of British Columbia 's 1871 entry into the Canadian Confederation . The City of Vancouver , incorporated in 1886,

1798-789: The first direct train to Constantinople left Paris from Gare de l'Est . Istanbul, as it became known in English by the 1930s, remained its easternmost stop until 19 May 1977. The eastern terminus was the Sirkeci Terminal by the Golden Horn . Ferry service from piers next to the terminal would take passengers across the Bosphorus to Haydarpaşa Terminal , the terminus of the Asian lines of the Ottoman Railways . The train

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1856-627: The maintenance coupled with improved road technology — not to mention the incredibly rough ride the planks created and the fact that the road was only wide enough for a single vehicle — meant that the days of the Plank Road were numbered. A new, 20-foot/6-meter-wide road with an asphaltic concrete surface constructed on top of a built-up sand embankment replaced the Old Plank Road upon its opening on August 12, 1926. The same roadway later became displaced by U.S. Route 80 , itself since displaced by Interstate 8 . Today, only fragments of

1914-536: The more sparsely settled West. It recruited Cantonese laborers in China, who built the line over and through the Sierra Nevada mountains and then across Nevada to their meeting in northern Utah . Chinese workers made up ninety percent of the workforce on the line. The Chinese Labor Strike of 1867 was peaceful, with no violence, organized across the entire Sierra Nevada route, and was carried out according to

1972-414: The name became synonymous with intrigue and luxury rail travel . The city names most prominently served and associated with the Orient Express are Paris and Istanbul, the original termini of the timetabled service. The rolling stock of the Orient Express changed many times. However, post-World War II, the Orient Express struggled to maintain its preeminence amid changing geopolitical landscapes and

2030-431: The new final station now becoming Budapest. In the summer season of 1999 and 2000 a sleeping car from Bucharest to Paris reappeared running twice a week, now operated by CFR . This continued until 2001, when the service was cut back to just Paris–Vienna, as a EuroNight train, though the coaches were actually attached to a regular Paris– Strasbourg express for that leg of the journey. This service continued daily, listed in

2088-478: The next day at 23:20. The return trip left Vienna on Friday, 13 October at 16:40 and, as planned, re-entered the Gare de Strasbourg at 20:00 on Saturday 14 October. Georges Nagelmackers was the founder of Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits (CIWL), which expanded its luxury trains, travel agencies and hotels all over Europe, Asia, and North Africa. Its most famous train remains the Orient Express . The train

2146-458: The old route. The Treaty of Saint-Germain contained a clause requiring Austria to accept this train: formerly, Austria allowed international services to pass through Austrian territory (which included Trieste at the time) only if they ran via Vienna. The Simplon Orient Express soon became the most important rail route between Paris and Istanbul. The 1930s saw the Orient Express services at its most popular, with three parallel services running:

2204-682: The original route from Paris to Istanbul. Since December 2021, an ÖBB Nightjet runs three times per week on the Paris-Vienna route, although not branded as Orient Express. Beginning in 2025, Accor will launch its own Orient Express with journeys from Paris to Istanbul. In 1882, Georges Nagelmackers , a Belgian banker's son, invited guests to a railway trip of 2,000 km (1,243 mi) on his Train Eclair de luxe ("lightning luxury train"). The train left Paris Gare de l'Est on Tuesday, 10 October 1882, just after 18:30 and arrived in Vienna

2262-426: The possible exception of the historic Orient Express . Transcontinental railroads helped open up interior regions of continents not previously colonized to exploration and settlement that would not otherwise have been feasible. In many cases they also formed the backbones of cross-country passenger and freight transportation networks. Many of them continue to have an important role in freight transportation and some like

2320-494: The quality of their cuisine. Royalty , nobles , diplomats, business people, and the bourgeoisie in general patronized it. Each of the Orient Express services also incorporated sleeping cars which had run from Calais to Paris, thus extending the service from one end of continental Europe to the other. The start of the Second World War in 1939 again interrupted the service, which did not resume until 1945. During

2378-477: The railroad land grant lands and the transport provided for timber and crops led to the rapid settling of the "Great American Desert". The Union Pacific recruited laborers from Army veterans and Irish immigrants, while most of the engineers were ex-Army men who had learned their trade keeping the trains running during the American Civil War . The Central Pacific Railroad faced a labor shortage in

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2436-408: The rise of air travel. The route stopped serving Istanbul in 1977, cut back to a through overnight service from Paris to Bucharest , which was cut back further in 1991 to Budapest , then in 2001 to Vienna, before departing for the last time from Paris on 8 June 2007. After this, the route, still called the Orient Express , was shortened to start from Strasbourg , leaving daily after the arrival of

2494-460: The route of the Arlberg Orient Express . In 1983, the 100th anniversary of the Orient Express was celebrated by extending the route to run from Paris to Istanbul. The train ceased operations in 2007. In 1982, the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express was established by businessman James Sherwood as a private venture and is currently owned and operated by Belmond . It operates restored 1920s and 1930s carriages on routes around Europe. It also offered

2552-530: The route was extended to Giurgiu , Romania. At Giurgiu, passengers were ferried across the Danube to Ruse, Bulgaria , to pick up another train to Varna . They then completed their journey to Constantinople , as the city was still commonly called in the west at the time, by ferry. In 1885, another route began operations, this time reaching Constantinople via rail from Vienna to Belgrade and Niš , carriage to Plovdiv , and rail again to Istanbul. On 1 June 1889,

2610-562: The settlement and economy of the American West . It brought the western states and territories into alignment with the northern Union states and made transporting passengers and goods coast-to-coast considerably quicker, safer and less expensive. It replaced most of the far slower and more hazardous stagecoach lines and wagon trains . The number of emigrants taking the Oregon and California Trails declined dramatically. The sale of

2668-422: The success of the race and with the backing of local newspapers, Fletcher raised the money to pay for 13,000 planks shipped from San Diego to Holtville, California . The first planks were laid on February 14, 1915, with the help of both volunteers and paid labor. The roadbed consisted of two parallel plank tracks, each 25 inches/63.5 cm wide, spiked to wooden crosspieces laid underneath. The total length of

2726-477: The timetables under the name Orient Express , until 8 June 2007. With the opening of the LGV Est Paris–Strasbourg high speed rail line on 10 June 2007, the Orient Express service was further cut back to Strasbourg–Vienna, departing nightly at 22:20 from Strasbourg, and still bearing the name, but lost the train numbers 262/263 which it had borne for decades. The remains of the original train had

2784-584: The war, the German Mitropa company had run some services on the route through the Balkans , but Yugoslav Partisans frequently sabotaged the track, forcing a stop to this service. Following the end of the war, normal services resumed except on the Athens leg, where the closure of the border between Yugoslavia and Greece prevented services from running. That border re-opened in 1951, but the closure of

2842-477: The western and eastern extremities of Europe. The route saw alterations and expansions, including the introduction of the Simplon Orient Express following the opening of the Simplon Tunnel in 1919, enhancing the service's allure and importance. Several routes concurrently used the Orient Express name, or variations. Although the original Orient Express was simply a normal international railway service,

2900-450: Was a considerable engineering challenge. The construction took five years after ground was first broken for the line in May, 1850, cost eight million dollars, and required more than seven thousand workers drawn from "every quarter of the globe." This railway was built to provide a shorter and more secure path between the United States' East and West Coasts. This need was mainly triggered by

2958-520: Was a long-distance passenger luxury train service created in 1883 by the Belgian company Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits (CIWL) that operated until 2009. The train traveled the length of continental Europe, with terminal stations in Paris in the northwest and Istanbul in the southeast, and branches extending service to Athens , Brussels , and London . The Orient Express embarked on its initial journey on June 5, 1883, from Paris to Vienna, eventually extending to Istanbul, thus connecting

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3016-446: Was commissioned in 1916. The new roadway consisted of prefabricated wooden sections laid to a width of 8 feet/2.4 m with double-width turnouts every 1000 feet/305 m. The sections were shipped to the work site via horse-drawn wagon from their assembly point in nearby Ogilby , and then lowered into place using a crane. For the next ten years, work crews struggled against the elements to keep the Plank Road open. The cost and difficulty of

3074-435: Was completed in 1909, consisting of the Western Pacific Railway , Denver and Rio Grande Railroad , Missouri Pacific Railroad , and Wabash Railroad . Beyond Toledo, the planned route would have used the Wheeling and Lake Erie Railroad (1900) , Wabash Pittsburgh Terminal Railway , Little Kanawha Railroad , West Virginia Central and Pittsburgh Railway , Western Maryland Railroad , and Philadelphia and Western Railway , but

3132-408: Was composed of: The first menu on board (10 October 1882): oysters, soup with Italian pasta, turbot with green sauce, chicken ‘à la chasseur’, fillet of beef with ‘château’ potatoes, ‘chaud-froid’ of game animals, lettuce, chocolate pudding, buffet of desserts. On 5 June 1883, the first Express d'Orient left Paris for Vienna via Munich . Vienna remained the terminus until 4 October 1883, when

3190-512: Was considered to be one of the greatest American technological feats of the 19th century. Known as the "Pacific Railroad" when it opened, it served as a vital link for trade, commerce, and travel and opened up vast regions of the North American heartland for settlement. Much of the original route, especially on the Sierra grade west of Reno, Nevada, is currently used by Amtrak's California Zephyr , although many parts have been rerouted. The resulting coast-to-coast railroad connection revolutionized

3248-404: Was designated the western terminus of the line. The CPR became the first transcontinental railway company in North America in 1889 after its International Railway of Maine opened, connecting CPR to the Atlantic coast. The construction of a transcontinental railway strengthened the connection of British Columbia and the North-West Territories to the country they had recently joined, and acted as

3306-417: Was made possible by the US government under Pacific Railroad Acts of 1862, 1864, and 1867 . Its original course was very close to current Interstate 80 . The United States' first transcontinental railroad was built between 1863 and 1869 that connected the existing eastern U.S. rail network at Council Bluffs, Iowa , with the Pacific coast at the Oakland Long Wharf on San Francisco Bay . Its construction

3364-440: Was officially renamed the Orient Express in 1891. The onset of the First World War in 1914 saw Orient Express services suspended. They resumed at the end of hostilities in 1918, and in 1919 the opening of the Simplon Tunnel allowed the introduction of a more southerly route via Milan , Venice, and Trieste . The service on this route was known as the Simplon Orient Express , and it ran in addition to continuing services on

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