Book | Les tramways belges dans l’Empire Ottoman

Edited by Tramania asbl. ISBN 978-2-9601948-4 -5 Published in conjunction with the exhibition « Orient Express [1] » at the Trainworld museum (Brussels, from 26 October).

SEE ALSO: Belgium in the Ottoman Capital, From the Early Steps to 'la Belle Epoque' The Centenary of "Le Palais de Belgique": 1900-2000

Belgium in the Ottoman Capital PART 2

EXCERPT: "...In March 1907, the Belgian Envoy Errembault de Dudzeele emphasised how much potential lay ahead for Belgian companies partaking of the concession for the capital’s tramways network, at that time still horse-pulled and consisting of five planned lines throughout the city centre. In view of this grand scheme, the Envoy wanted the two Belgian interest groups already dominating the capital’s power generation, ‘Gaz de Stamboul’ on the city’s European bank and the Empain group on the Asian shore, to join forces and secure this important project of public utility investment for Belgian industry.

In spite of all these efforts the Legation had to be patient until 1911 to see a real Belgian business front develop. Yet, when it came about, it proved to be a very powerful and successful one: in 1911, the Banque de Bruxelles, the Belgian administered Sofina holding and Hungarian partners outwitted the rivalling French German ‘Union Ottomane’ and were granted by the Sultan a monopoly over Constantinople’s electricity generation and supply. This success was immediately consolidated in the creation of the “Société Ottomane d’Electricité (Constantinople)”, mainly funded with Belgian capital. Within months, the Banque de Bruxelles and Sofina further tightened their grip on the rival Union Ottomane, by forcing it to participate in the so-called Consortium. This was a giant financial construction with control over just about everything related to utility and urban service development in early 20th century Constantinople. Through its major stake in this Consortium, Belgian capital led by Sofina became key not only to the city’s electrification programme, but also to all significant projects of urban transport. The plan to switch from horse-pulled to electricity powered tramways was put on the drawing board that same year, in 1911, and resulted in the inauguration of the first electric tramway line in town two years later. The Consortium also comprehended the “Société du Tunnel”, operating the cable car system between Galata and Pera, still in use today, and the “Société Ottomane du Chemin de Fer Métropolitain”, which had obtained in 1912 a governmental concession to build “a metropolitan railway of approximately 7 km between Stamboul and Galata-Pera, passing underneath the Golden Horn”, as stated in financial company reports. These visionary plans to build an underground metro line were unfortunately marred by the outbreak of the Great War: on June 30th 1914, all parties in the Consortium of Constantinople gave their blessing to strengthen their powerful alliance in energy and public transport into a single mega-company, the Brussels based “Tramways et Electricité de Constantinople”, to be run on day to day basis by the Belgian group Sofina. 

Mavi Boncuk | 

“Les tramways belges dans l’Empire Ottoman”

This book describes the detailed history of the tramways of Beirut, Constantinople, Damas, Salonica, Smyrna. It describes several light railways in the former Ottoman Empire and a bunch of aborted projects (i.a. Jaffa, Jerusalem, Lesbos). A chapter is devoted to the Aleppo trams, established under French rule, and other sections illustrate the horse trams of Bagdad and Tripoli, two networks which were the subject of electrification schemes in the thirties.

All these networks were wholly or partially financed and/or equipped by Belgians, the last of those enterprises being nationalized in the fifties. A final chapter is devoted to the tramways preserved in Lebanon, Istanbul and Salonica. This study is based on an in-depth survey of the archives of the operators and in the Belgian and French diplomatic files.

Next to the description of the networks, their operation and rolling stock with an unprecedented accuracy, the book reveals how concessions could be obtained in the highly corrupted Empire. There was little change under the Republic, while the operation of Salonica, once Greek after the 1st Balkan war, had to face the bureaucracy and the insolvency of the new rulers.

Quite strangely, the operations in Beirut and in Damas became under the French flag a prime target for the nationalists. Beyond an historical approach describing the harsh realities of another era, the author tries to add a touch of humor and of humanity. The life of the people who built and operated those tramways, whether Ottomans or expatriates, is dealt with too.

220 pages A4 on glossy paper 115 g/m², hardcover, 9 tables of the rolling stock, 335 illustrations including 30 tickets, 20 maps, 4 original paintings by P. Meeuwig.  

[1] From 26 October 2021 until 17 April 2022, Train World will host an exceptional exhibition dedicated to the epic story of the Orient-Express and its Belgian creator, Georges Nagelmackers.

For the occasion, mythical Orient-Express carriages will be exhibited in Train World, the Belgian railway company museum in Brussels. This major exhibition of the Europalia Trains & Tracks festival, will also present decorative works of art and unique documents retracing the adventure of the Orient-Express and the Wagons-Lits company.

The exhibition will also evoke the imaginations awakened by this legendary train and the dreams it generated, from the most famous like Agatha Christie to the most tenuous, while paying tribute to the craftsmen who helped build its legend.

After America, luxury trains are reaching Europe. They were introduced to the continent by a visionary Belgian: Georges Nagelmackers[*]. Founder in 1876 of the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits and creator of the legendary Orient-Express, this young engineer from Liège will revolutionize train travel. He set out to conquer Europe and Asia by rail, offering his wealthy customers the opportunity to travel on some of the most lavish and comfortable trains in the world.

Nagelmackers, who had spent ten months in the United States, returned to Belgium with the intention of reproducing and perfecting the American concept of the Pullman sleeper cars. But his wealthy-industrialist family cut off his allowance: "Trains with beds in? What a ridiculous idea!!!" Nagelmackers didn't give up and found in Leopold the Second the perfect ally. 

Georges Nagelmackers began by designing standard rolling stock able to run on lines in various countries. In the late 19th century, the technical railway standards differed from country to country, forcing passengers to change at borders. He also struck deals with customs departments to make border crossings smoother.

Before then long-distance train travel had been Spartan. But Nagelmackers designed sleeping cars with luxurious private compartments which had sinks with running water, restaurant cars, smoking cars and saloon cars with a piano. And all of this came with a service worthy of a 5-star hotel.

On the eve of the First World War, the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits was running 31 luxury trains, including the Nord Express, which left from Ostend and Paris, via Brussels, then on to Berlin, Warsaw, Moscow and Saint-Petersburg; and the Oiseau Bleu from Antwerp, via Brussels, to Paris.

In the 1920s, the decoration was updated. The wooden inlay, lamps and stained-glass windows by the artist René Lalique created the atmosphere of the Roaring Twenties that marked the golden age of the wagons-lits. A legend was born...

[*] Georges Nagelmackers (1845 – 1905)  banker and financier originating from Liège, 

Georges Nagelmackers established an international company that came to symbolise luxury travel by rail. He was born in Liège to a wealthy family who had interests in railways and banking, and links to the Belgian royal house. As a young man he travelled in the United States and was impressed with the railway services developed by George Pullman (1831-1897). He returned to Belgium in 1869 with plans to develop international through rail services, and in particular to attract the custom of British travellers bound for India and going  by train to Brindisi in southern Italy from where they continued by steamer. His plans were frustrated by the Franco-Prussian War in 1870, but in 1872 he began to operate services from Ostend to Berlin, from Paris to Cologne and from Vienna to Munich, and the following year gained favorable publicity by providing trains to take Parisians to the International Exhibition in Vienna. 

Lack of capital forced him into partnership with a rival, the American, Colonel William d’Alton Mann (1839-1920), a retired cavalryman, who had supplied the first sleeping car in Great Britain to the Great Northern Railway in 1874, and ran a company called Mann Boudoir Sleeping Cars operating trains in Germany, Belgium, France and the Habsburg Empire. Nagelmackers became general manager of the joint company on 31 August 1874 and on 4 December 1876 bought out Mann, and established the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits, to which the words ‘et des Grands Express Européens’ were added in 1883. The new company took over all the Mann services between the principal cities of German, extending across the German borders to Vienna, Bordeaux, Ostend and to Orsova on the Danube, the eastern frontier of the Habsburg Empire. The company supplied food and drink to sleeping car passengers, and in 1881 constructed in Munich its first restaurant car for daytime use.

The Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits et des Grands Express Européens’ operated some of Europe’s most celebrated trains. On 5 June 1883 there was a demonstration of what was to become the Orient Express running from Paris to Giurgowo | Giurgiu RO| Yergöğü TR, on the Danube in present-day Romania, where passengers embarked on steamers to Constantinople.  

Georges Naegelmackers, had his “Wagons-Lits” construct the Pera Palace in 1892 as an extension to his other big venture, the Orient Express: the legendary train travelling across Europe.

[See: Surreal Shores – A Golden Dawn On The Bosphorus: The Orient Express By Boat (Part Four)] 

A daily service on part of this route, from Paris to Budapest, began on 1 June 1884, with connections twice a week to Giurgowo. After the construction of new railways in Bulgaria, from 1 June 1889 the Orient Express took passengers all the way from Paris to Constantinople in 67 hours 35 minutes without change of carriage.

After the Second World War the company could no longer operate east of the Iron Curtain. It operated fewer trains made up exclusively of its own vehicles but sleeping and restaurant car services continued. National railway companies were increasingly willing to co-operate in such ventures as the Trans-European Express network, which made the need for a trans-national company less obvious, and long-distance rail services of all sorts were increasingly subject to competition from airlines. In 1960 the company still had about 13,000 employees, with workshops in Paris, Ostend, Rome, Vienna, Munich, Athens, Irun, Madrid and Istanbul. The company was re-named the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits et du Tourisme in 1967, and two years afterwards began to sell off its vehicles. Sleeping car services across Europe are now much reduced, but the company still operates, providing, amongst other services, catering facilities on Eurostar trains.

See also: “Belgium trams in Egypt”

Book trams Egypt tramways Cairo Alexandria Heliopolis Fayum

Les tramways belges en Egypte (1894-1960) par R. Dussart-Desart (in French)

This book describes the detailed history of the tramways of Cairo, Heliopolis, Alexandria, Port Saïd and of the light railways in the Lower Egypt and Fayoum areas.

All those networks were financed or equipped by Belgians in the 1864-1960 period, the last of them being nationalized in 1960.

Several pages also illustrate the networks of Cairo, Heliopolis and Alexandria in the sixties, the seventies and in 1980 and in 1992. Two pages are devoted to Belgian tramways preserved today in Cairo and Heliopolis. The book analyses the various joint ventures between those undertakings (ranging from rolling stock overhaul to exchange of “spies”) and the history of their subsidiary companies active in the fields of the generation of electricity and of the production of rolling stock.

This study is based on an in-depth survey of the archives of the operators, several trips on-site and thirty years of exchanges with witnesses of the development of those networks. Beyond an historical approach describing the harsh realities of another era, the author tries to add a touch of humor and of humanity. The life of the people who built and operated those tramways, whether Egyptians or expatriates, is dealt with too.

172 pages A4 on glossy paper 115 g/m², hardcover, 296 illustrations including 231 photos, postcards and artefacts, 33 tickets, 16 network maps, 7 paintings by P. Meeuwig, 6 shares, 3 technical drawings.