Vienna-Nice-Cannes-Express
The Vienna-Nice-Cannes-Express , sometimes also referred to as the Vienna-San Remo-Nice-Cannes-Express or the St. Petersburg-Vienna-Nice-Cannes-Express , was one of the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits (CIWL) operated luxury train . Interrupted by World War I , he traveled between Vienna and the Franco-Italian Riviera from 1896 to 1939 , at times from Warsaw and Saint Petersburg . Because of its popularity with the nobility , both among Russian grand dukes andHabsburg archdukes , he was nicknamed "Train des Grand-Ducs" before 1914.
From 1896 to 1914
As the second independent luxury train after the Orient Express , which first ran in 1883 , the CIWL introduced the Calais-Nice-Rome Express (soon afterwards renamed the Calais-Mediterranée Express ) from Calais and Paris to the Riviera in the same year . The Riviera was the most important holiday destination for the European upper class in the winter season . In order to satisfy the corresponding demand outside France and Great Britain, the CIWL introduced the Vienna-Nice-Cannes-Express for the first time in the winter timetable 1896/97.
The new luxury train , exclusively in first class , ran three times a week from Vienna Westbahnhof on lines of the kk state railways to the then Austrian-Italian border station at Pontafel and on via Venice , Milan Genoa and Ventimiglia to Nice and Cannes . CIWL initially avoided routes operated by the private Südbahngesellschaft in Austria , which meant that the train between Vienna and Pontafel had to make a significant detour via Amstetten and Selzthal . Other companies involved were the Italian railways Rete Adriatica and Rete Mediterranea and the French PLM . The train took a little under 30 hours for the 1,380 km route. With departure from Vienna at 2:15 p.m., Cannes was reached the next evening at 8:02 p.m.
For the winter season 1898/99, the CIWL fundamentally changed the train route together with the railway administrations involved. It was given the significantly shorter route between Vienna and Pontafel via the Semmering Railway, which is owned by the Südbahngesellschaft, and ran daily during the season. The Südbahn also took on the role of managing administration, which acted as a common contact for all participating railway companies towards CIWL. In addition, the train route north of Vienna was extended to Warsaw via the Kaiser Ferdinand's Northern Railway and the Warsaw-Vienna Railway . In Vienna he no longer served the Westbahnhof, but the Südbahnhof . This extension was initially only carried out once a week, and from the 1902/03 season onwards twice a week. In Warsaw, where the European standard gauge ended at that time , there was a connection to a wide-gauge luxury train to St. Petersburg. The CIWL marketed both trains under the common name “St. Petersburg-Vienna-Nice-Cannes-Express ”. From St. Petersburg to the Riviera, three night journeys were required on the now 3,118 km long route.
With the expansion into the Russian Empire, the train became particularly popular with the wealthy St. Petersburg society. The “Train des Grand-Ducs” was also open to passengers in the second class of the time between 1904 and 1911 on the section from St. Petersburg to Vienna, making it an exception among the luxury trains operated by CIWL before the First World War. From 1903, the train also ran a saloon car on the daytime section between Milan and Cannes , which was only used from Genoa in 1913. Starting in 1908, the train was supplemented by a twice-weekly through-car from Podwoloczyska , which was then an Austrian border and lane change station on the route from Lemberg to Kiev , which was provided in Vienna . For the winter season 1914/15 the European timetable conference decided to introduce another sleeping car from Vienna to Cannes and a through car from Budapest to Ventimiglia. Due to the World War, these plans were no longer implemented.
The luxury train caused a sensation in 1909 when it was snowed in near Pontafel for a week .
From 1923 to 1939
The political and economic changes after the First World War, above all the dissolution of the Habsburg monarchy, meant that a luxury train was not used again from Vienna to the Riviera until December 15, 1923. By then, the CIWL had already brought the Orient Express and the Sud Express back into operation, but for the first time it was again a luxury train for vacation with the train pair now known as the “Vienna-San Remo-Nice-Cannes Express” - and leisure travelers. The train drove three times a week from Vienna's Südbahnhof to the Riviera and quickly proved to be a success, despite the poor economic situation of the young Republic of Austria . As before the war, it remained a seasonal train only used in winter. From 1927 he even drove daily during the season. A year later the train received a through car from Budapest, so in Vienna this car was changed to Vienna Ostbahnhof to make it easier to move .
The global economic crisis severely impaired the demand for the CIWL luxury trains, which are exclusively offered to first class passengers. As of the 1930/31 season, the Vienna-San Remo-Nice-Cannes Express was therefore also opened to second-class passengers, and the CIWL reduced the frequency of journeys to three journeys per week. In order to develop additional customers, she extended the Budapest through car to Bucharest and added a sleeping car from Munich to Cannes that was delivered in Verona . From the 1931/32 season onwards, the train also received a through car from Warsaw, which, like the Bucharest through car, was unsuccessful and was discontinued after two years. The train was also operated between Ventimiglia and Cannes on the Riviera Express from Berlin . Like the Riviera Express, the Vienna-Nice-Cannes Express received a sleeping car to Rome from 1935 . The last time the train ran at the end of the winter season was on May 4, 1939.
vehicles
Like all CIWL luxury trains at the time, the Vienna-Nice-Cannes Express consisted exclusively of sleeping cars , dining cars and baggage cars . Until 1914 these were the usual CIWL carriages clad with teak , the sleeping carriages corresponded to the type R ("Règle") of the CIWL. In the period before the First World War, the CIWL kept a separate fleet of cars for each of its luxury trains. For the broad-gauge section between St. Petersburg and Warsaw, this 1908 consisted of three dining and baggage cars as well as five sleeping cars. The longer and more frequently served standard-gauge section required seven dining cars, 13 baggage cars and 24 sleeping cars, with the exception of a few baggage cars, these were all cars with bogies that were no more than nine years old . The luggage trolleys were not only used to transport passengers' luggage and to accommodate staff, the CIWL also used them to deliver fresh cut flowers to Austria and Russia.
After the war, the CIWL initially used their teak wagons again. With the rapid procurement of new all-metal wagons, it soon switched the Vienna-San Remo-Nice-Cannes Express to the blue all-steel wagons already known from the Train Bleu . In 1933, however, the Munich through car was still an old type R wooden car.
literature
- Wilfried Biedenkopf: Across old Europe. The international train and through car runs as of the summer of 1939. Publishing house and office for special traffic literature Röhr, Krefeld 1981, ISBN 3-88490-110-9 .
- Albert Mühl: International luxury trains . EK-Verlag, Freiburg im Breisgau 1991, ISBN 3-88255-673-0 .
- Albert Mühl, Jürgen Klein: Traveling in luxury trains. The International Sleeping Car Society. EK-Verlag, Freiburg im Breisgau 2006, ISBN 3-88255-696-X .