Grandluxe Express Traveling in High Style

This lavish book invites readers aboard the glamorous renovated cars of the GrandLuxe railway train. In 1989, the American-European Express, a stylish train created in emulation of Europe's Orient Express, commenced operation between Washington and Chicago. Forced to close down two years later, it was reborn in 1994 as the American Orient Express. The AOE, as this luxury streamliner was often known, matured under the tutelage of various owners until 2006, when under new ownership it acquired a new name, the GrandLuxe Express.Trackside, the train gleamed as a classic American streamliner. Aboard, travelers enjoy old-fashioned, wood-paneled elegance that harkens back to the 1920s and Europe's posh Wagons-Lits sleepers and restaurant cars.

"In the turmoil of Amtrak's problems with a wishy-washy Congress and administration fumbling on national transportation policy and on the issue of passenger rail service, The GrandLuxe Express is a breath of fresh air." --George M. Smerk, series editor, Railroads Past and Present

"This volume tells the GrandLuxe story well and the presentation is as beautiful as the train it chronicles." --Michigan Railfan, January - February, 2009 Indiana University Press

"As befitting its subject, this is a lavishly illustrated all color 144-page hardbound book describing the glamourous GrandLuxe Express trains that were conceived to be an American version of the famous European Orient Express." --S. Gaugian, March/April 2009

Karl Zimmermann is the author and co-author of 20 books, including CZ: The Story of the California Zephyr; Santa Fe Streamliners: The Chiefs and Their Tribesmen; and Magnetic North: Canadian Steam in Twilight. An accomplished writer and photographer whose love of trains has sparked a lifetime of travel worldwide, Zimmermann has been a frequent contributor to the travel sections of newspapers across the country, including The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and The Washington Post, while his stories and photographs have been published in various magazines. He lives in Oradell, New Jersey.

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction: Cruising on the GrandLuxe Express

1. Ancestry

2. The American-European Express Comes and Goes

3. American Orient Express: The Phoenix Rises

4. The Old Order Changeth: GrandLuxe Rail Journeys

5. Silk Purses: GrandLuxe's Glamorous Cars

6. Life on Board

Appendix: All-Time Roster of Cars Operated

Index