Another Brexit casualty? Orient Express to scrap UK section after 41 years

When the service was first launched 140 years ago, passengers were not required to bring passports

The UK section of the Orient Express has been scrapped after 41 years due to Brexit border controls, according to a new report.

The Orient Express famously featured in Agatha Christie’s novel Murder on the Orient Express, and originally ran from Paris to Istanbul.

Now the London to Folkestone leg of the route has been stopped because it has become too difficult to cross the border to Calais.

A Nostalgie-Orient-Express-Istanbul carriage from the 1920s-30s (© Xavier Antoinet)

Belmond, the company that operates the service, said “enhanced border and passport controls” mean the company would have to “adjust operations” next year.

The company told The Observer: “We want to avoid any risk of travel disruption for our guests – delays and missing train connections – and provide the highest level of service, as seamless and relaxed as possible.”

Orient Express passengers had previously been able to ride the service’s luxury art deco carriages from Victoria station to Folkestone before boarding a coach to cross to France, where they could join a Belmond train in Calais.

Post-Brexit security checks, which have caused delays at Dover for up to 14 hours in recent weeks, mean passengers must have their passport checked prior to crossing the channel.

Biometric scans of fingerprints and faces will also soon be introduced for travellers.

Cars faced 90-minute waits at the Port of Dover on Good Friday, and were seen snaking all the way to the nearby town, with lorries thought to be stretching back further.

No 10 has admitted that “new processes” brought in after Brexit have contributed to travel chaos at the Port of Dover.

A compartment on a vintage 1929 Orient Express train costs between £3,530 to £10,100 per person, and passengers dress for dinner in the evening.

When the service was first launched 140 years ago, passengers were not required to bring passports, and British travellers were only required to bring the Thomas Cook Continental Timetable.