#How do you spell obsessed trial
Maiden voyageĪ year before the inaugural departure of the Orient Express, on October 10, 1882, Nagelmackers invited guests on a trial run of his Train Éclair de luxe (luxury Lightning Train) on a round trip from Paris to Vienna. In time, it became the first multinational corporation dedicated to opulent transport and hospitality, with trains and other holdings eventually spreading from Europe to Asia and Africa. It would establish a network of luxury trains-including the Blue Train, the Golden Arrow, and the Taurus Express-all over Europe. After the creation of the Orient Express, the CIWL adopted a rather cumbersome new name: the International Company of Sleeper Carriages and Great European Expresses. Soon after its founding, the CIWL began providing catering and accommodation services to various European railway companies in the form of sleeper carriages, saloon carriages, and dining cars. Leopold II saw the business potential of Nagelmackers’s idea and helped him secure the necessary contracts with railway administrations in the eight different countries for what would become the CIWL’s flagship railway line. The monarch was widely known as both a savvy financier and a railroad enthusiast. Nagelmackers found the ally he needed in King Leopold II of Belgium.