More than just a 'mystery' train, the Orient Express whisked the elite across Europe in luxury and style.
东方快车不仅是一列"神秘"的火车，它还用奢华和时尚的方式载着精英们穿梭于欧洲各地。
By the late 19th century, most European countries were connected by rail, yet train travel was a largely unpleasant experience—rough and dirty, unreliable and sometimes dangerous, with complicated, time-consuming border crossings. Unfortunately, there was scant incentive to improve things: Business was booming, and rail owners viewed innovations with suspicion.
在19世纪后期，大多数欧洲国家都通过铁路连接起来了，然而火车旅行基本上是一种不愉快的经历——粗糙肮脏、不可靠，有时还很危险，还有复杂、耗时的越境通道。不幸的是，当时缺乏改进的动力:生意很火，铁路所有者对创新持怀疑态度。
Nagelmackers, the scion of a prominent Belgian banking family, sensed an untapped demand for a new kind of travel that would combine glamour and luxury. King Leopold II of Belgium saw the business potential of Nagelmackers’s idea and helped him set up the luxury train company. The first official journey of the Orient Express — a name bestowed by newspapers and subsequently embraced by Nagelmackers - was a grand affair attended by many of the leading lights of Paris’s diplomatic, financial, and journalistic circles. The train consisted of three carriages, two sleeper cars, a dining car, and two luggage wagons. Each wagon was built of teak wood, heated by steam, lit by gaslight.
纳吉麦克是一个显赫的比利时银行家族的后代，他感觉到人们对一种将魅力与奢华结合在一起的新型旅行的需求尚未得到开发。比利时国王利奥波德二世看到了纳吉麦克想法的商业潜力，并帮助他成立了豪华火车公司 。东方快车，这个名字由报界授予，后来也被纳吉麦克欣然接受，其第一次正式旅行是一场盛会，巴黎外交、金融和新闻界的许多重要人物都参加了。火车由三节普通车厢、两节卧铺车厢、一节餐车和两节行李车组成。每节车厢都是柚木做的，用蒸汽取暖，用煤气灯照明。
The decor of the Orient Express was, undoubtedly, luxurious and exquisite. Inspired by the best hotels in the world, the train cars boasted embossed leather ceilings, velvet curtains, silk sheets, mahogany furniture, silver cutlery, crystal glassware, marble fixtures, and bronze taps. The train was lit by lamps from the factory of renowned art nouveau glassmaker Émile Gallé, and its walls were adorned with tapestries woven by Gobelin, the Parisian design house that had been supplying the French court since the time of Louis XIV.
东方快车的装潢无疑是豪华而精致的。受到世界上最好的酒店启发，火车上有压纹皮革天花板、天鹅绒窗帘、丝绸床单、红木家具、银餐具、水晶玻璃器皿、大理石装置和青铜水龙头。火车的灯光来自著名的新艺术主义玻璃制造厂Émile Gallé，它的墙壁上装饰着由巴黎设计公司Gobelin织造的挂毯，该公司从路易十四时代起就一直为法国宫廷提供设计。
Despite the array of comforts and technical advances that the Orient Express boasted, it experienced plenty of mishaps too—some of them serious. In January 1929 snow trapped the Orient Express near Constantinople (Istanbul) for days. The passengers, close to dying of hunger and cold, escaped the train by digging a tunnel through the snow. The event inspired Agatha Christie’s 1934 mystery novel Murder on the Orient Express. Christie drew the setting for her novel from her first trip on the train in 1928. Her painstakingly detailed descriptions of the carriages captured the essence and luxury of the train, which she then overlaid with mystery and intrigue.
尽管东方快车自诩拥有一系列的舒适条件和技术进步，但它也经历了大量的事故——有些很严重。1929 年 1 月，大雪将东方快车困在君士坦丁堡（伊斯坦布尔）附近数天。乘客们险些饥寒交迫而死，他们通过在雪地里挖一条隧道来逃出火车。这一事件启发了阿加莎·克里斯蒂（Agatha Christie）创作1934年的推理小说《东方快车谋杀案》。克里斯蒂的小说以她1928年第一次乘火车旅行为背景。她煞费苦心地对车厢进行了细致的描述，捕捉到了火车的本质和奢华，然后又赋予其神秘和阴谋。
图文来源 | National Geographic
翻译 | 新译科技AI+人工校对
编辑、排版 | 王仔洋
