Georges Lambert Casimir Nagelmackers (born 25 June 1845 in

Liège Liège ( , , ; wa, Lîdje ; nl, Luik ; german: Lüttich ) is a major city and municipality of Wallonia and the capital of the Belgian province of Liège. The city is situated in the valley of the Meuse, in the east of Belgium, not far from b ...

Belgium Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to th ...

; deceased 10 August 1905 in

Villepreux Villepreux () is a commune in the Yvelines department in the Île-de-France in north-central France located about 12 km west of Versailles, in the plaine de Versailles, almost in line with the perspective of the Grand Canal (an axis corresp ...

, France) (60 years old) was a Belgian civil engineer and businessman. He was the founder of the

Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits Newrest Wagons-Lits, formerly (lit. ''International Sleeping-Car Company''), also CIWL, Compagnie des Wagons-Lits, or just Wagons-Lits, is a division of particularly known for its on-train catering and sleeping car services, as well as being ...

, the company known for the

Orient Express The ''Orient Express'' was a long-distance passenger train service created in 1883 by the Belgian company ''Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits'' (CIWL) that operated until 2009. The train traveled the length of continental Europe and int ...

trains.

Biography

Born into a family of bankers with interests in railways and close links to the court of King

Leopold II of Belgium * german: link=no, Leopold Ludwig Philipp Maria Viktor , house = Saxe-Coburg and Gotha , father = Leopold I of Belgium , mother = Louise of Orléans , birth_date = , birth_place = Brussels, Belgium , death_date = ...

, Georges Nagelmackers trained as a civil engineer.Tanel. Page 94. As a young man he fell in love with an older cousin. When his feelings were not reciprocated, his family encouraged him to travel to the United States of America to help him recover and also further his professional studies. He spent ten months travelling throughout America during which time he was exposed to train travel on Pullman carriages. He became convinced that there was a market for Pullman-type carriages in Europe. After a proposal to

George Pullman George Mortimer Pullman (March 3, 1831 – October 19, 1897) was an American engineer and industrialist. He designed and manufactured the Pullman sleeping car and founded a company town, Pullman, for the workers who manufactured it. This ulti ...

to collaborate on developing the European market was rebuffed, Nagelmackers returned to Europe. Other versions of his biography maintain that Georges Nagelmackers knew about sleeping cars as they were already in operation in Belgium before he traveled to the United States, and that he never actually met George Pullman. In 1870 he published a proposal to develop sleeper carriages for the European market called "Projet d'Installation de wagons-lits sur les chemins de fer du continent" (Project for the installation of sleeping cars on the railways of the Continent). However the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War delayed the granting of a concession from the Belgian government and the establishment of his first sleeper-carriage service. In 1873 Georges Nagelmackers founded the company Georges Nagelmackers & Company, which later became

(CIWL). He headquartered the company in Paris and created the Compagnie Internationale des Grands Hotels to develop and operate luxury hotels along its trains' routes. His strategy consisted of convincing train operators to attach his sleeping and restaurant cars to their trains to diversify train travelers' choices. The first CIWL-only train became operational in 1882. The

was launched 4 October 1883. Later, he bought the

Mudanya Mudanya (Mudania, el, τα Μουδανιά, ''ta Moudaniá'' l. (the site of ancient Apamea Myrlea) is a town and district of Bursa Province in the Marmara region of Turkey. It is located on the Gulf of Gemlik, part of the southern coast of t ...

–

Bursa ( grc-gre, Προῦσα, Proûsa, Latin: Prusa, ota, بورسه, Arabic:بورصة) is a city in northwestern Turkey and the administrative center of Bursa Province. The fourth-most populous city in Turkey and second-most populous in the ...

line and sold it to the French in 1891. He also bought the Izmir–

Kasaba Kasaba or Kasabaköy is a village 17 kilometres outside Kastamonu, Turkey. It had a population of about 23,000 in 1905, when it had considerable local trade, but has since shrunk to only a few dozen households. Kasaba does not contain any ancie ...

Railway in 1893 and also sold it to the French the following year. He competed in the equestrian mail coach event at the

1900 Summer Olympics The 1900 Summer Olympics (french: Jeux olympiques d'été de 1900, link=no), today officially known as the Games of the II Olympiad () and also known as Paris 1900, were an international multi-sport event that took place in Paris, France, from 1 ...

, winning the gold medal.

References

*Mustafa Yazıcı, Mudanya-Bursa Demiryolunun Yapımı ve İşletilmesi (1873–1908), Nilüfer Belediyesi, Bursa, 2015,

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Nagelmackers, Georges Businesspeople from Liège 1845 births 1905 deaths Equestrians at the 1900 Summer Olympics Olympic equestrians of Belgium Belgian male equestrians Olympic gold medalists for Belgium Medalists at the 1900 Summer Olympics Sportspeople from Liège