Going, Going, Gone: The Sale of the Orient Express

I magine boarding a morning train along the French Riviera only to find Grace Kelly—or, more correctly, Princess Grace of Monaco—settling into the same carriage, wrapped in a beige poplin Yves Saint Laurent suit. That was the surprise awaiting travelers departing Nice in October 1977. This was no ordinary ride. The train’s unexpected destination was an auction inside Gare de Monte Carlo, where five carriages of the Orient Express were up for sale.

Just five months earlier, the French national railway had announced it was retiring the service. Since 1883, the Orient Express had epitomized transcontinental luxury—and inspired more than one murder mystery—but it had finally fallen victim to the jet age. Sotheby’s, seizing the moment, offered collectors the chance to own a piece of its gilded legacy.

Among the bidders was James Sherwood, the late American shipping magnate who had recently acquired the Hotel Cipriani in Venice. For $104,000, he secured two Deco-era sleepers—and began resurrecting the train. Over five years, he tracked down more than 20 additional carriages in Europe: one had become a garden shed, another a pigeon coop, and one reportedly served as a brothel.

By 1982, Sherwood’s vision was fully realized. The train, restored with the help of French designer Gérard Gallet, returned to service. Having licensed the Orient Express name, Sherwood expanded it into a global luxury brand, renamed Belmond in 2014. As he told The Telegraph of London in 2012: “Concorde has come and gone, and the Orient Express is still here. It was a good hunch.”