Faded Glory

Haine-Saint-Pierre depot, La Louvière-Sud station (Belgium), October 11th 2014

  

Faded and forgotten, a pair of former Compagnie Internationale des Wagon Lits rests at the Haine-Saint-Pierre depot.

The wagon depicted is 3907, a YT-type Sleeper Car that was built at Nivelles (Belgium) in 1949, which was later converted to a YU-type.  As such, she was was used on international services by her parent company - including the actual Orient Express during the 1960s - until the CIWL decided to concentrate on the travel agency and management business, and sold off her fleet to many of her customer railways.  Car 3907 (UIC 51 66 06-41 334-7 ) ended up with the Dutch Railways between 1972 and 1975, before she was sold on to the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express.  However, she was never restored to service, but instead merely parked up and left to rot by the company.

After that, she mysteriously disappeared and reappeared a number of times, including one spot at a yard in Bremen in 1990.  Despite her sorry looks, she has actually been provisionally taken care for now: steel plating has been welded over her windows and doors in order to prevent her interior from deteriorating.  This suggests she might actually still have a future in store, most likely as a static display (much like her Nivelles-built sibling 3929 which is currently being restored in Denmark)

The other car stored at Haine-Saint-Pierre is most likely car 3489 (UIC 5166 06-41 117-6), a 1929 Metropolitan-built LX-type Luxury Sleeper Car.  She too belonged to the CIWL, and was part of the original 1977 Monte Carlo auction that is often considered as the end of the original Orient Express.  However, she was not retained for inclusion into the present-day VSOE fleet, and ended up making the same journeys 3907 made...