TEE Rheingold

Whereas the famous Train of luxury, the East-Express train, connected London and Paris to Istanbul, the German imperial railroad took as a starting point this famous train to create a relation between the Swiss city of Basle and the the North Sea. With prestigious train, prestigious name, as the route crossed the mythical valley of the the Rhine, its name were consequently selected: Das Rheingold (In French: the Gold of the Rhine). Moreover, the legend of this gold gave also its name to a opera composed in 1869 by Richard Wagner.

The Rheingold connected Amsterdam and Hoek van Holland to the city Rhénane for the first time in 1928. The inaugural, long voyage, 662 kilometers lasted eleven hours and half. Tractor drawn by majestic a Locomotive Pacific S 3/6 Bavarian, it was made up only of luxurious parlor cars of 1e and 2nd classes, painted in mauve and cream with the gold edgings. According to these originators, this train was intended for the same success as the East-Express train.

Alas, the history decided some differently. The defeat of the IIIe Reich involved the suppression of the relation. The Germany ruins some, nobody did not think of reintroducing a pullman-car express, the more so as several parlor cars were destroyed by the allied Bombardements and the surviving ones used in regular service, because from now on any car of railroad in a position to run was being a rare food product.

A few twenty years later, a second chance was offered to the Rheingold when in 1957 large the saga was born railway from the Trans-Europ-Express train (TEE). These trains only made up of cars of First class traversed during three decades all the west of the Europe, vêtus their colors blazing Bordeaux wine and cream and bearing names enchanters such as the Blue Bird , the Star of North , or Catalan Talgo .

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