Georges Nagelmackers
Georges Nagelmackers (born June 24, 1845 in Liège ; † August 10, 1905 in Villepreux ) was a Belgian rail company. He founded the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits and the Compagnie Internationale des Grands Hôtels . As an entrepreneur, he played a key role in the development of the Orient Express . In addition, he won the Summer Olympics in Paris in 1900 in a team driving .
Life
Nagelmackers came from a banking family and initially worked as a mining engineer. His aunt Valerie b. Nagelmackers was married to the Austrian composer Count Ludwig von Stainlein (1819–1867). During a trip to North America in 1867/68 he studied the local railways and was particularly interested in the developments of the entrepreneur and inventor George Pullmann , namely sleeping and dining cars , which were already being used on the long routes in the USA that had to be covered. As a result, Nagelmackers planned to introduce such wagons in Europe and in 1870 published the text: Projet d'installation de wagons-lits sur les chemins de fer du continent . The Franco-Prussian War from 1870 to 1871 initially delayed the project, but thanks to the support of the Belgian King Leopold II , a friend of his father's, Nagelmackers received concessions in 1872 to operate wagons on the Ostend-Brindisi and Paris-Vienna routes . As a result, in October of the same year, Nagelmackers founded a stock corporation, the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits (CIWL). This initially got into turbulence in its first expansion phase and had to enter into an alliance with the American speculator and financier William d'Alton Mann , which was later paid off.
The CIWL was initially primarily concerned with acquiring and operating sleeping cars. To this end, it concluded contracts with European railway companies that put these cars in their trains. From 1880 dining cars were also added.
After the use of sleeping and dining cars was successful, Nagelmackers developed plans for his own international luxury trains consisting entirely of CIWL cars, which would run on the route network of various European rail companies. These ideas initially turned out to be difficult to implement, as various railway companies either already operated their own sleeping and dining cars or had concluded contracts with CIWL competitors for their use. Through negotiations with railway companies in France ( Compagnie des Chemins de fer de l'Est ), Baden ( Grand Ducal Baden State Railways ), Württemberg ( Royal Württemberg State Railways ), Austria-Hungary ( kk Austrian State Railways ) and the Kingdom of Romania (Royal Romanian Railways ), thanks in part to the support of King Leopold II, Nagelmackers was able to set up the first luxury train from Gare de l'Est in Paris on June 5, 1883, with wagons exclusively equipped by CIWL via Munich , Vienna , Budapest , Bucharest to the Romanian Danube port Let Giurgiu go. In Giurgiu, the travelers were brought across the Danube by ferries and boarded a special train to Varna , from where the journey by ship to Constantinople was continued. This train, which was later run alternatively via Belgrade and Sofia to Constantinople , became famous as the " Orient Express ". The skilled entrepreneur Nagelmackers invited two well-known journalists, Edmond About and Henri Opper de Blowitz, to the opening trip . He also recommended that passengers arm themselves as a precaution, since (similar to the overland routes in North America at the time) in Europe, too, raids by bandits were to be expected in the “wild” Balkans. About's book De Pontoise à Stamboul (Paris 1884) is considered the “official” report on this maiden voyage.
Due to his success with the Orient Express, Nagelmackers had a luxury hotel, the Pera Palas , built in Pera , the traditional European quarter of Constantinople, for travelers of the CIWL , which opened in 1892.
Nagelmackers was not the inventor of sleeping and dining cars and was not the first entrepreneur to introduce these facilities in Europe. However, he helped them achieve their breakthrough and introduction in many European countries, where they spread from the luxury segment to the other car classes. When he died, the CIWL was active in more countries than any other operator of such wagons.
Nagelmackers remained head of the CIWL until his death in 1905. His successor was his confidante, Napoléon Schroeder , the head of the CIWL operations department in Paris, who was originally from Germany .
literature
- Fritz Stöckl: Railways in Southeast Europe. Yugoslavia, Greece, Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey . (= The railways of the earth) Vienna (Bohmann Verlag) 1975. ISBN 3-7002-0431-X
- Jürgen Franzke: Orient Express - The King of Trains . (Catalog for the exhibition of the same name at the DB Museum Nuremberg) Nuremberg 1998.
- Alexis Gregory: Bon Voyage. The golden age of travel 1850 - 1950 , Heyne, Munich 1990.
Web links
- Georges Nagelmackers - Short biography with photo (Dutch)
- Georges Nagelmackers in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )
Individual evidence
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Nagelmackers, Georges |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Belgian travel company |
| DATE OF BIRTH | June 24, 1845 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Liege |
| DATE OF DEATH | August 10, 1905 |
| Place of death | Villepreux |