How a YouTube Video Sparked the Orient Express 2027 Revival

The Orient Express is set to return in 2027 after a YouTube video revealed abandoned 1920s carriages in Poland. Their recovery and restoration now shape the new interiors and layouts, with French craftsmen rebuilding key details and a Paris exhibition showing the first full-scale models of the revived train.

How a Polish rail yard became the key to the Orient Express 2027 revival

Picture this: You’re a railway researcher scrolling through YouTube videos on a Tuesday afternoon, and suddenly you spot something that makes your heart skip.

A sign reading “Malaszewicze” appears in the background of a random video. For most people, it’s just another Polish place name. But for Arthur Mettetal, working for French railway giant SNCF, it was the clue he’d been hunting for years.

It was the beginning of one of the most extraordinary train resurrections in history. Those 17 Art Deco carriages from the 1920s that Mettetal discovered had been abandoned for almost 2 decades, sitting forgotten in a marshalling yard right on the Polish-Belarus border.

Using Google 3D maps like a modern-day treasure hunter, Mettetal pinpointed the exact location and set off on a 4-hour drive from Warsaw.

What made the Malaszewicz find unusual

As an Orient Express enthusiast, I’ve seen many photos of abandoned CIWL stock over the years. One dining car sits at the Thessaloniki Railway Museum.

Another badly vandalised car, often said to be in Belgium, circulates online with endless debate over whether it even belonged to CIWL. Most remains are isolated, heavily damaged, and missing enough components that identification is uncertain. None of them resembles a train that could reasonably be saved.

The footage from Polish blogger Marian na Świecie was different. It showed a full consist, all 17 cars together, with clear branding and structural integrity.

The level of preservation was far beyond anything usually found in Europe. That clarity is what made this discovery stand out and why it became the foundation for the 2027 revival effort.

From Forgotten Stock to the 2027 Restoration

When Arthur Mettetal and his team arrived at that isolated marshalling area at dawn, they weren’t prepared for what they found. Imagine stumbling upon 17 railway carriages lined up in the open air, exposed to the elements yet somehow miraculously preserved.

The interiors still boasted their original Lalique glass panels, engraved with delicate “blackbirds and grapes” motifs. The Morrison & Nelson marquetry, the kind of woodwork that would make modern craftsmen weep with envy, remained intact.

They were the carriages of the Nostalgie-Istanbul-Orient-Express, a 1980s revival train created by Swiss tour operator Albert Glatt. When that service ended, the carriages were abandoned and left to rust. Forgotten.

The acquisition process began in 2018 when Accor set its sights on these 17 original carriages, though negotiations were complex. After 2 years of discussions, the sale was finally signed at the Bristol Hotel in Vienna in July 2018. The carriages were then transported to France under police escort for security reasons.

2027 Orient Express at Musée des Arts Décoratifs

If you’re in Paris between October 22, 2025, and April 26, 2026, the Musée des Arts Décoratifs is celebrating the centenary of Art Deco with an exhibition featuring nearly 1,000 works. The centerpiece is the Orient Express display.

But this isn’t just about looking at old stuff behind glass. The exhibition displays a fully restored 1926 Art Deco cabin from the museum’s collection alongside life-size interior models of the future Orient Express. It’s like stepping into a time machine that travels backward and forward simultaneously.

What You’ll See at 1925-2025. Cent ans d’Art déco exhibition

The exhibition takes up three floors of the museum. Each level shows different parts of the Art Deco story. You’ll find geometric patterns that were popular in the 1920s, luxury objects from the Jazz Age, and examples of how the style influenced everything from coffee cups to skyscrapers.

The Grand Nave Spectacle

The museum’s grand nave has been turned into the main showcase where 3 different versions of the Orient Express sit side by side. The lighting and staging make it feel like you’re standing on a train platform watching different eras arrive at once.

While the Orient Express gets the most attention in the nave, the other galleries are full of Art Deco treasures that help explain why this style mattered so much. The trains are impressive, but they’re part of a bigger story.

The curators, Bénédicte Gady and Anne Monier Vanryb, have gathered pieces that show how Art Deco touched every part of life in the 1920s and ’30s. Here’s what you’ll find:

• Furniture by Jacques-Émile Ruhlmann, who basically defined Art Deco furniture design
• Experimental pieces by Eileen Gray and Jean Dunand
• Cartier jewelry from the period (the price tags would make you faint)
• Fashion pieces, including embroidered evening dresses from the Roaring Twenties
• Everyday objects like ashtrays, radios, and perfume bottles that regular people could actually afford

Each piece was chosen to show a different aspect of Art Deco thinking. The style believed that modern life deserved modern beauty. It argued that useful things should also be beautiful. And it suggested that luxury wasn’t only about how much something cost, but about how well it was made.

The 2027 Revival: Not Your Grandfather’s Orient Express (But Kind Of)

The resurrection of the Orient Express is about reimagining what luxury travel means in an era where most of us are used to cramped airplane seats and baggage fees. This is France flexing its cultural muscles, showing the world that some things can’t be rushed, digitized, or made more efficient.

The Man Behind the Magic

Enter Maxime d’Angeac, an architect who’s basically been given the job of a lifetime: reimagine the world’s most famous train without messing it up. No pressure, right?

D’Angeac worked for 2 years with 30 master artisans to reinvent this symbol of luxury travel. But here’s the clever bit: he’s not trying to create a museum on wheels. Instead, he’s taking the soul of the 1920s and giving it a 21st-century body. Every line of the train was drawn by hand, in Indian ink, with an obsession for detail that borders on the religious.

The Suites: Where Modern Luxury Meets Jazz Age Glamour

The new Orient Express will feature private suites rather than traditional seating. The entire train has been conceived as a series of private accommodations, each designed with attention to historical detail and modern comfort.

Nostalgie Orient Express Suite Categories

The train will offer three distinct levels of accommodation, each designed to provide a different experience while maintaining the overall aesthetic vision:

1. Deluxe Suites – Private bathrooms, fold-down beds, and extensive wood paneling
2. Standard Suites – Similar amenities in a smaller space
3. The Presidential Suite – An entire carriage configured as a single suite

The attention to detail in these spaces is staggering. Each suite represents hundreds of hours of craftsmanship, from the hand-polished brass fixtures to the custom-woven fabrics that reference 1920s patterns while using modern, sustainable materials.

Every accommodation on the train, regardless of category, has been designed with both historical authenticity and modern comfort in mind:

• Original Lalique glass panels from the 1920s
• Morrison & Nelson marquetry restored to museum quality
• Cartier clocks
• Private bathrooms with sliding doors
• Convertible seating that transforms from daytime lounging to nighttime sleeping

The genius is in how these elements work together. The Lalique panels catch the changing light as the train moves, creating a constantly shifting ambiance. The marquetry isn’t just decoration – it’s functional art, with hidden compartments and clever storage solutions built into the intricate woodwork.

The Route: Following History’s Tracks

The journey itself is being treated as carefully as the train’s interiors. While Accor hasn’t published a definitive itinerary, the train is expected to follow the historic Paris-Istanbul route, a journey that once defined the very concept of international travel.

Imagine this journey: Paris → Strasbourg → Munich → Vienna → Budapest → Bucharest → Sofia → Istanbul

That’s 8 countries, countless landscapes, and enough Instagram content to last a lifetime. But more than that, it’s a journey through the heart of European history, following tracks that have carried everyone from royalty to spies, from artists to adventurers.

The Craftsmen: France’s Best Hands at Work

The restoration of the Orient Express is as much a celebration of French craftsmanship as it is a revival of a legendary train. In an age of mass production and automation, this project represents something almost rebellious: the insistence that some things can only be made by human hands.

Around 30 French artisan workshops are involved, each bringing centuries of combined expertise to bear on different aspects of the train. The coordination alone is a feat of project management, but the real magic happens in the workshops themselves.

What’s remarkable is how these traditional workshops have had to innovate. The Lalique panels, for instance, required developing new techniques to clean and restore 1920s glass without damaging the delicate engravings. The upholsterers at Ateliers Jouffre had to source fabrics that matched the originals in appearance but met modern fire safety standards.

The Technical Challenge

Here’s the thing about putting a 1920s aesthetic into a 2027 train: you need modern stuff like air conditioning, soundproofing, and Wi-Fi (yes, even on the Orient Express). The genius move? All the technical elements are hidden.

The engineering challenge was immense. How do you install modern HVAC systems without visible vents? How do you provide USB charging ports without breaking the Art Deco aesthetic?

The solutions involved custom-designed fixtures that blend seamlessly into the period design, hidden panels that slide away to reveal modern amenities, and creative routing of cables and ducts through spaces that were never designed for them.

The Instagram Factor

Let’s be real, this train is going to be a social media gold mine. Every surface, every angle, every detail has been designed not just to be experienced, but to be photographed. It’s experiential luxury for the age of influence.

The Competition: Rail Renaissance

The Orient Express isn’t alone in betting on luxury rail travel. The market is heating up:

• Venice Simplon-Orient-Express (the current luxury service)
• La Dolce Vita Orient Express (Italy’s new offering)
• Britannic Explorer (UK’s answer to luxury rail)
• Various Japanese luxury trains (because Japan does everything with style)

But none have the name recognition, the history, or frankly, the mythology of the original Orient Express.

If You Want to Experience the Orient Express Revival

So what should you do with all this information? Well, that depends on where you are and what excites you most about this whole revival.

The exhibition runs through April 26, 2026, offering an opportunity to see the new Orient Express designs before the train enters service. It provides insight into both the historical context and the restoration process.

Those interested in booking passage should monitor the Orient Express website for announcements about ticket sales. Based on other luxury train launches, there may be a lottery or priority booking system for the inaugural journeys.