PARIS: French multinational hospitality company Accor has announced the Orient Express train linking Paris to Austria’s capital Vienna will return in 2024, French news channel BFMTV reported on Saturday.

The new train will have 12 sleeping cars, one restaurant, three lounges and a caboose.

Launched in the 1880s by Belgian civil engineer and businessman Georges Nagelmackers, the Orient Express train operated until 2009, connecting Paris via capitals of continental Europe to Istanbul. Its first journey linked Paris to Vienna.

“In 2024, just in time for the Paris Olympic Games, the first cars designed in collaboration with the finest French artisans will unveil the new charms of the Orient Express,” said the Accor Group, which co-owns the Orient Express with France’s national state-owned railway company SNCF.

The rebirth of the Orient Express meeting scientific, artistic and technical criteria is a technological challenge as the entire project has been conceived as a work of art, said Maxime d’Angeac, architect for the new Orient Express train, in a press release.