Orient Express



A variety of rail services have used the name "Orient Express"—we're covering all of them here:
 * The original route, now defunct as of 2009. The classic route was from Istanbul to Paris via Belgrade and Vienna (there were two versions, three a week each, taking different routes between Vienna and Paris. This truncated over the years to Paris-Vienna and ended as Strasbourg-Vienna.
 * The luxury London-Venice service, the Venice Simplon Orient Express, which uses vintage engines and carriages.

The route was famed for its luxury sleeping and dining cars, having a general air of opulence about it.

For more information, see here.

The examples below feature the Orient Express in fiction, and fictional railway services clearly inspired by it.

Films -- Live-Action

 * Romance on the Orient Express: a 1985 TV movie with Cheryl Ladd.
 * In the 2004 version of Around the World In 80 Days, Mr. Fogg rides aboard the train to Istanbul.
 * From Russia with Love (and the original novel too), featuring a legendary fight scene between Bond and Red Grant in a compartment, still used to screen test potential Bonds.

Literature

 * Murder on the Orient Express, where Hercule Poirot has to investigate a murder on the train. Adapted a number of times for film, including a modern-day adaptation.
 * Also the short story "Have You Got Everything You Want?" is set on board the train.
 * The Napoli Express, a Lord Darcy mystery deconstructing the story of Murder on the Orient Express.
 * In Dracula, when Dracula escapes from England to Varna by sea, the cabal sworn to destroy him travels to Paris and takes the Orient Express, arriving in Varna ahead of him.
 * Stamboul Train by Graham Greene.
 * Travels With My Aunt by Graham Greene.
 * Flashman and the Tiger by ~George MacDonald Fraser~: Sir Harry Paget Flashman travels on the train's first journey as a guest of the journalist Henri Blowitz.
 * The Solar Pons story The Adventure of the Orient Express.
 * In the Diesel Punk story Leviathan, the Orient Express appears as a heavily armed high-tech train.

Live-Action TV

 * Get Smart had an episode titled "Aboard the Orient Express".
 * Minder on the Orient Express (1985): a special episode of the long-running ITV sit-com Minder.
 * Star Trek: The Next Generation, "Emergence": the train appears on the Enterprise's holodeck.
 * In the British soap opera Eastenders, in 1986, characters Den and Angie Watts spent their honeymoon on the train.

Music

 * "Orient Express" is the title of a piece of music Jean Michel Jarre composed for his 1981 Concerts In China. The video clip features footage of the classic train.

Tabletop Games

 * The role-playing game Call of Cthulhu (tabletop game) used the train for one its more famous scenarios.

Video Games

 * The Last Express, an epic adventure game by Jordan Mechner is about the fictionalized final trip of the Orient Express in the weeks leading up to WWI.

Western Animation

 * Rugrats paid homage to Murder on the Orient Express with a (fake) murder mystery on the "Ornery Express".
 * The Backyardigans episode "Le Master of Disguise" features the Orient Express, showing Uniqua, Pablo, Austin, Tasha, and Tyrone going to Istanbul from Paris.
 * The 1987 cartoon Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles has an episode entitled "Turtles on the Orient Express". As the title suggests it is primarily based on the train.
 * In one episode of the British cartoon series Danger Mouse, called "Danger Mouse on the Orient Express", DM and Penfold travel on the train on their way back to London from Venice. DM's arch-enemy Greenback is also on the train. They're both vying for a document that could lead to disaster for Europe's tourist industry.
 * In 1994's Season 1 episode of Where on Earth Is Carmen Sandiego?? called "The Gold Old Bad Days", Carmen Sandiego and her V.I.L.E. gang are given a challenge to do something low tech by The Player. Carmen's goal is the train.