Mitropa

Mitropa

Type	Public
Industry	Public transport
Successor	SSP Group
Founded	1916
Headquarters	Munich, Germany
Area served	Central Europe
Services	Catering, foodservice
Revenue	€120 million (2003)
Number of employees	1,950 (2004)

Mitropa was a catering company best known for having managed sleeping and dining cars of different German railways for most of the 20th century. Founded in 1916, the name "Mitropa" is an acronym of Mitteleuropa (German for Central Europe). The railway carriages displayed a distinct burgundy-red livery with the Mitropa logo.

Since a 2002 reorganization, when the onboard catering branch was taken over by DB Fernverkehr, the company only provided stationary food services for rail and road customers. The remaining business was sold to Compass Group in 2004 and merged into the Select Service Partner (SSP) subsidiary in 2006.

The company was founded during World War I on 24 November 1916, as Mitteleuropäische Schlafwagen- und Speisewagen Aktiengesellschaft. Its founders included different railway companies of the Central Powers, i.e. Germany and Austria-Hungary, who discontinued the service provided by the 'enemy'-owned Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits (CIWL). From the establishment of business activities on 1 January 1917, Mitropa held the monopoly on cross-border dining and sleeping car services, including the Balkans Express from Berlin to Constantinople, introduced to replace the CIWL Orient Express trains.

After the war, CIWL was able to take over most routes in Central Europe, while Mitropa maintained most of its routes within Germany and Austria as well as routes to the Netherlands, Scandinavia and Switzerland. From 1928 the company ran diner cars on the Bernina and Rhaetian Railway lines as well as on the pullman coaches of the Rheingold luxury train competing the CIWL Edelweiss service. Mitropa also catered Donaudampfschiffahrtsgesellschaft passenger ships and the Baltic ferry link from Sassnitz to Trelleborg.