Famous Long-distance Expresses.

This summer there are operating for the benefit of the traveller through Europe some exceptionally fast and comfortable page 22 long-distance expresses, and, this year, Continental travel has attained prodigious proportions. The Great War had one good effect, at any rate. This was to increase the desire of the European for international travel, a desire for which the railways of every land have not been slow to cater.

Between London and Continental points the Southern and London and North Eastern Railways provide many alternative routes. By the Southern Railway there are operated

On The Paris-Berlin Trunk Route.
The Hohenzollern railway and road bridge across the Rhine, at Cologne, Germany.

no fewer than eight express services a day from London to Paris, and it is this Home railway that is concerned in the famous “Golden Arrow” express service between the two capitals. The “Golden Arrow” Pullman Limited leaves Victoria Station, London, daily at 11 a.m., and Paris (Nord) is reached at 5.35 p.m., this being the quickest service available between the two cities. Connecting with the Southern Railway services to Paris, are numerous long-distance expresses operating from the French capital to every corner of southern and eastern Europe. There is the “Blue Train” between Paris and the Riviera, the “Simplon-Orient Express” between Paris and Constantinople, the “Orient Express” to Vienna, Budapest and Bucarest, and the “Sud Express” between Paris and Madrid. The “Simplon-Orient Express” makes a run of 2,178½ miles, the longest through service in Europe. It brings London within 73½ hours of Constantinople, and the through first-class fare between the two points named is about £18.

The Harwich-Hook of Holland services of the London and North Eastern Railway, which have just been supplemented by the addition of three fine new twinscrew turbine steamers with equipment on the lines of that provided in crack ocean liners, are rightly popular among knowing travellers. There is a daily service in each direction by these railway steamers between Harwich and Hook of Holland, Antwerp, and Esjberg (Denmark), with a nightly service (summer only) in each direction between Harwich and Zeebrugge.

The “Hook of Holland Continental Express” leaves Liverpool Street Station, London, daily, at 8.15 p.m. It is composed of Pullman and restaurant cars, and across the water forward trains operate between Hook of Holland and every European centre of importance. At 10 page 23 a.m. daily, the “Flushing Continental Express” leaves Liverpool Street Station for Harwich, and here again through services are operated forward from Flushing to the principal European cities. Yet another trans-continental departure from Liverpool Street is the “Antwerp Continental Express,” at 8.30 p.m. The Continental services of the L. and N.E. Railway from Liverpool Street Station, London, connect on the Continent with such famous long-distance trains as the “Rheingold Limited,” between Hook of Holland and Switzerland; the “Edelweiss Express,” between Brussels and Switzerland; and the “Balkan Express” to Constantinople. With such a wide range of fast through trains available at comparatively low fares, there is little wonder Continental travel shows such marked popularity at the present time.