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When railroad dining cars were the height of luxury
Often modeled on Parisian fine dining, onboard restaurants were a triumph of logistics and engineering that redefined luxury train travel.
As newspaper correspondent Henri Opper de Blowitz, one of the maiden journey’s passengers, wrote: “The bright-white tablecloths and napkins, artistically and coquettishly folded by the sommeliers, the glittering glasses, the ruby red and topaz white wine, the crystal-clear water decanters and the silver capsules of the Champagne bottles — they blind the eyes of the public both inside and outside.” Charles Dickens, a frequent traveler on the UK’s railroads, recounted a visit to one such establishment, where he purchased a pork pie comprising “glutinous lumps of gristle and grease” that he “extort(ed) from an iron-bound quarry, with a fork, as if I were farming an inhospitable soil.” And from the table service to the decor, the carriages embodied the French art of living, according to Arthur Mettetal, who recently curated an exhibition about the history of Wagon-Lits’ dining cars at the Les Rencontres d’Arles photography festival in France.
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