Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 32, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 February 1916 — DISORGANIZED BY WAR [ARTICLE]

DISORGANIZED BY WAR

EUROPEAN RAILROAD SYSTEMS HAVE BEEN HIT HARD. Many Trains That £lad Become Famous the World Over Have Had to Be Discontinued in the Belligerent Lands. “While the war has put all Europe out of order, no better illustration of its disorganization could be chosen than that of its chaotic railway geography, presenting an aspect of disrupted schedules, broken lines, and reorganized routings on such a scale as to give some idea of the confusion in the belligerent continent,” begins a bulletin issued by the National Geographic society. “Trains de luxe afehblonger streaking hosts or Americans over famous railway routes rich In memories for the travelers of every country, taking them.to historic grounds, to curative springs, to mountain grandeur, to centers of international smartness, to places for fashionable winter sport, and to Mediterranean resorts for springtime and sun in winter.' The trains de luxe of before the war are no longer running; for hostile frontiers cross their network in all directions.

“Of the 12 most famous European express trains, only four are still able to run. The four lines still open are the Ostend-Vienna express; the Ber-lin-Karlsbad-Marienbad express, a summer train; the South express, Paris - Bordeaux - Irun-Madrid-Lisbon; and the Siberian express, Moscow-Krasnojarsk-Irkutsk-Vladivostok. Service was halted* indefinitely for the Nord express, with its compartments coming from Paris, Ostend and Brussels, which left Berlin for Petrograd and Moscow, its sections splitting up for their respective destinations in Russia at Warsaw. The Nord express was a brilliant European link in the far-spanning trans-Siberian railway, and, in peace times, it pulled out of Berlin daily.

"Further, the popular Berlin-Tirol-Rome-Naples and Egyptian -express, whose many sections were always filled with travelers, beginning about this time of the year, has ceased to operate. Its conductors and engineers, aristocrats among European railroad men, with considerable standing in the bureaucracies of Germany, Austria, France and Italy, are now in all likelihood driving endless lines of freight cars through war-scarred country,

"The Orient express was the first express in all Europe before the war, a train whoso French, German and Austrian sections were not surpassed by any other of the trains de luxe. It lias now lost much of its international character; has changed its direction; and, in place of., the wealthy and the renowned, it has taken to carrying soldiers and munitions. "Before the outbreak of the war, the Orient express ran over a line east and west; now it runs northwest and southeast. It was made up at Paris, and its route was Paris-Strass-burg - Munich - Vienna - Budapest-Bel-grade-Sofia-Constantinople, while one of its sections went to Bucharest. The Orient express, probably, ran through more important capitals, eight of them, and bore a more mternational character than any other train In the world; The stations of this famous train were marked by the national cities of peoples, and its way halted at either end in earth’s two foremost historic centers. Paris-Karlsbad express has stopped. The Peninsula express, a speedy train through France, where It rivals the Paris-Marseilles and the Calais-Basel expresses, still has a Clear way on that stretch wherein it is known as thfe Peninsula express, between Calais and Brindisi. Its Dutch and German sections coming from Rotterdam and Berlin, however, are no longer riding behind it. The Pe-trograd-Vienna-Nice .express and the Christiania-Paris express, have, also; war for an indefinite time. Practically all of the Black Diamond, Empire State and Twentieth Century expresses of Europe are war-stained, and such timetables as remain In force are,, for civilians, uncertain things, subject solely to military advantage.” ' ;