Is the Venice Simplon Orient Express the original Orient Express?
No. Not least because there was no ‘original’ Orient Express. The Orient Express was a service, not a physical train of coaches, and it used different rolling stock at different times in its history, and in any case it required several sets of coaches to operate, not just one (think about it: You can’t run a daily service from Calais to Istanbul taking 3 nights with just one set of coaches!). In addition, most of the VSOE’s sleeping-cars are 1929-built ‘LX’ series cars which were not generally used on the Orient Express to Istanbul at all, but being the Wagons-Lits Company’s premier sleeping-cars they were used on trains such as the Train Bleu from Calais/Paris to Nice & Monte Carlo, the Nord Express from Paris to Berlin, Warsaw & Riga, and the Rome Express from Calais/Paris to Rome. However, VSOE also own a couple of ‘S’ class sleepers dating from 1927 which were used on the original Orient Express services to Istanbul & Athens, at least before WW2 (after WW2 they were replaced on the
