Balt-Orient-Express
The Balt-Orient-Express was an international express train that was in service from the late 1940s. The train originally ran as part of the Orient Express network between Sweden and Istanbul , but the train route was gradually shortened. From 1962 the train ran between Berlin with through coaches from Leipzig and the Romanian capital Bucharest (Bucureşti) . He kept the name Balt-Orient-Express until the end of the train run in 1995, although it no longer reached both of the eponymous regions, the Baltic Sea and the Orient .
history
The Orient Express has been connecting Paris with Constantinople, now Istanbul, since 1888 . Gradually, this train was supplemented by other trains and through coaches between other parts of Europe and the Balkans and Turkey . The most famous of these trains was the Simplon Orient Express between Istanbul and Paris / Calais via Venice. Furthermore, Istanbul, Athens and Bucharest were directly connected to cities such as Berlin , Prague and Warsaw until the Second World War . After the outbreak of war, these trains were discontinued in 1940.
After the Second World War, the tradition of trains gradually revived. Orient-Express and Simplon-Orient-Express operated again. In 1948 the Balt-Orient-Express was introduced, which should be part of a connection from Stockholm to Istanbul. Originally it operated between Stockholm and Belgrade . Germany was bypassed, the train drove through the Polish Oder port of Swinoujscie , Posen and Žilina . The train carried through cars on the one hand from Prague and Warsaw, on the other hand to Istanbul. A year later, the train got through coaches from Berlin via Poznań to Bucharest for a short time before it generally traveled via Bucharest to Sofia instead of Belgrade until 1957. In 1951 there was a separate, unnamed train from Warnemünde - Berlin - Dresden - Budapest - Bucharest for traffic from the GDR.
Since 1955, the route of the Balt-Orient-Express no longer went via Poland, but via the GDR via Saßnitz , Berlin and Dresden. From 1959 the train only started in Berlin. The train ran from Berlin to Budapest until 1961, from where part of the train continued in the direction of Bucharest, another via Belgrade to Sofia. The through coaches from Berlin were transported from Belgrade to Sofia in the Tauern Express , which also carried coaches to Istanbul.
After the Iron Curtain between the two parts of Europe became more and more impermeable, the Orient Express train system could no longer be maintained in 1962. The Balt-Orient-Express continued between Berlin and Bucharest via Prague, Bratislava and Budapest, and this route remained until the train was discontinued in 1995.
The train since 1962
Since 1962, the train served mainly to connect the GDR and Czechoslovakia to Hungary and Romania . It operated between Berlin and Bucharest; separate trains were used for traffic in the direction of Belgrade and Sofia. With a few short-term exceptions, the train carried a group of through carriages to and from Leipzig Hauptbahnhof . In the absence of a suitable feeder, this was transferred to the 3720 passenger train at Dresden Hauptbahnhof for years in the 1970s and 1980s.
In the 1970s and 1980s, the travel time between Berlin and Bucharest was 33 or 34 hours, depending on the direction, which corresponds to an average travel speed of around 56 km / h. The train to Romania started late in the evening, around midnight, in Berlin and arrived in Bucharest in the morning, so travelers spent two nights on the train on the entire route. The train from the opposite direction reached Berlin early in the morning.
The train wagons came from the different countries served by the train. Mainly represented were the former ČSD and CFR as well as MÁV . Also included in the train composition were wagons of the BDŽ and, recently, often wagons of the DR . The train carried seating, sleeping and couchette cars.
In the summer months, the train and similar trains ( Pannonia-Express Berlin– Sofia , Hungaria , Berlin– Budapest , Trakia Leipzig – Varna ) were in high demand. From Czechoslovakia and Hungary, as well as Romania , a reservation was required.
reception
The train is the setting for the crime novel Password Balt-Orient (in the original Případ Balt-Orient ) by the Czech author Ivo Milan Jedlička. The book is about a murder on the train shortly before the construction of the Berlin Wall in August 1961. The crime film Allianz für Knete from the series Polizeiruf 110 , shot in 1990, is about thefts in the coaches from the Balt-Orient-Express on the passenger train Leipzig.
literature
- Rico Bogula: International express trains in the GDR. EK-Verlag, Freiburg, 2007, ISBN 978-3-88255-720-6 .
- Werner Sölch: Orient Express. The heyday and decline and rebirth of a luxury train . 4th edition. Alba, Düsseldorf 1998, ISBN 3-87094-173-1 .