OT the Orient Express train from London to Venice

Hi Joan!

It doesn't pass near where I live or lived but I have seen it arriving in Venice! It was a lot of years ago, in august 1984 and I was going to Czechoslovakia as a student (that was really a Orwell's "1984" experience, but that's another story). I had to change train in Venice and went around the station searching for a bottle of water when I had this "out of time" experience :-) A red carpet was laied near the old-fashioned train and a very stylish beautiful woman with a laaarge hat walked out from the train. It really looked like being in a Agatha Christie's novel!

Hugs,

Anna Maria

I don't know if you'd call it near, but I live about 3 hours south of Venice, by train.

Your description sounds really neat, Anna Maria!

Depending on which way the Orient Express goes from London to the Channel to cross it sometimes goes past the field at the end of our garden. Occasionally when I'm pegging out washing I see the Pullman carriages go past in their distinctive livery. And I think how lovely it would be to be going wherever it's going!! We also saw the train in Boulogne (north France) when we had gone on the ferry for a day out. The train was going further than we were! Love & higs Christine

LUCKY Christine ,,,, Do the spirits of the many people who boarded the ORIENT EXPRESS , still haunt your area???? The little Romances , the Big spy stories .... I am reading this Thread with great Joy !!!! Did you know that one branch of the Orient Express , went on from Italy to Bagdad [Iraq] and to Danscus ,, than a Branch got south to Meca & Medina ,,,, And part of it went through My city along the shore to Cairo ,,,,, Late we had a Big party celebrating the 150 Celebration to the first Train Station built in Haifa. It still exists , but is now a museum, not a travel station. It connected with the Hijagsy line that was laid by German companies , and paid and ordered by the TURKISH government [ they ruleed the whole area before WW1], To make it easier for Muslim People to make the trip to Meca & Medina for the haj`. it was closed during WW2, One of my mother`s best friends, Came to Israel in one of the last trains, to travel this line. She was freed from Bergen Belsen in an Exchange, that was made between the British and the Germans ,, Tempelars from Israel and war prisoners were excahnged for some Jewish people. They were sent by trains. Than the line closed, There is still a rail , unused, that goes under a dug tunnel in Rosh Hanikra , on the border between Israel And Lebanon. mirjam

X-No-Archive:yes

I am enjoying this thread also, Mirjam.

In that documentary, I saw the area where Christine is 'pegging' her wash and the port from which the Hovercraft crosses the Channel, an intriguing remark about a 'stylish, beautiful woman in a laarge hat' from Anna Marie, and a history of the Orient Express and its' place in the history of Europe and your family from you, Mirjam. These are things that you don't read in history books, but are completely fascinating to me.

In my short time with the group, I know I post a lot of OT threads, but then, one's mind wanders and thinks of lots of things while doing crafts. I am so grateful to the responders to my questions for knowledge of things beyond my own life experiences. RCTY is certainly made up of a diverse population brought together by the love of working with our hands, and our willingness to share.

Hugs Joan

Yes, isn't it all wonderful and interesting to read? I am SO enjoying this thread as well.

When I was a child we lived in the house at the top of a small hill just up from the train station. Most of the trains going through here were cattle cars or produce cars, but occasionally we also had passenger cars... and as children my friends and I would stand at the bottom of the hill where we could actually see inside the train cars as they passed and wave at the passengers... some of them waved back to us. :o) Unfortunately it was decided when I was a teenager that the trains were no longer needed in our area, as cattle and produce trucks were used instead... and because there weren't many passenger trains using this area, they were no longer needed either... so they faded away and the tracks sat there unused for many years, until they finally took them up completely when Matthew was about six.

The old train station was going to be torn down... with some protest by a few people because of the historic value (our town started out being just a train stop for farmers and nearby villages long before it ever became a town with a hotel for travellers and churches, and eventually houses and businesses). Unfortunately, the protesters lost out and the train station was demolished. However a few years later the town decided to build the new library on that exact spot (thankfully some people stepped in to stop the original library from being demolished, and it is being used instead for other things), and if you can believe it... the new library was built to look *exactly* like the old train station, when the original train station

Mirjam's comment about spirits haunting the area reminding me of when I was about to go into the bank uptown the other day.... Just as I was crossing the street going toward the bank (the train tracks used to run behind the row of business buildings uptown, where the bank is) I heard a very loud blast of a horn. Yes, there was a transport truck just going around the corner at the other end of the street, but this was much louder than truck horns normally are. I looked at a woman who had just come out of the bank and was about to cross the street in the opposite direction (who had a strange look on her face as she was looking around) and said "That sounded like a train didn't it?" She said "It sure did... but as far as I know there are no trains around here!" I responded "Not anymore, but once upon a time the trains used to run right behind the bank... maybe it's a ghost train!" We giggled at the thought and left it at that... knowing that it very likely was that transport truck that had just gone around the corner, with some newer and louder style of horn on it. I hadn't thought anymore about it until just now when I read the comment about the spirits haunting the area. :o)