Although the name Orient Express still evokes the famed adventures across the European continent created by world-renowned British detective fiction writer Agatha Christie, people today generally desire swifter and more efficient travel options. This is especially true in Hungary and neighboring Serbia, where rail travel between their respective capitals, Budapest and Belgrade, still takes almost eight hours.
The original monorail linking Belgrade and Budapest dates back to 1883, when the Orient Express traveled between Paris and what is now known as Istanbul in Türkiye at an average speed of about 40 km per hour. The speed on the entire line remained at that level before a revamp of a section in Serbia was launched in 2017.
However, trips in the region may soon become less exhausting with the completion of the line’s upgrading to an electric railway, which, once fully operational, will shorten the journey between the two capitals to three hours.
The 350-km railway is one of the flagship projects under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a China-proposed initiative to boost connectivity along and beyond the ancient Silk Road routes, which
