Reflections 2020
Series 6
July 30
Longer Overnight Train Trips Worldwide I

 

We've been discussing Pullman cars both in North America and in Britain. We have not yet discussed them on the Continent of Europe, which would involve a number of interesting longer train trips, including on the historic Orient Express. But it's best that we take a larger, global view, which will also eventually show us how the route of the Orient Express was an inevitable one. While I'd thought I'd need one posting before returning to Florida, it now looks like it will be three—two like this one and then the 19C start of the historic overnight trains.

 
 

Overnighting En Route    Overnight travel on a train sleeper or ship cabin is like being on a moving hotel, graced positively by the extended length of time required to reach the destination and not negatively by it, for those in the know.

 
 
 This cannot be said about air travel, whose emphasis is on speed, I've been on some pleasant flights, most particularly the 18h50 Singapore Airlines flight from New York/Newark to Singapore (2010/14), but that was in business class with wide seating that converted into a bed. (That run is 18h30 today, but is still the longest air route in the world.) But far too often, enjoyable flights are rare. I like to suggest that people might ask a traveler if their time on a train or ship was a prime part of their trip, but I cannot imagine anyone asking if their flight was the best part. That's something best over and done with, like on a bus trip.

Long-distance non-stop car travel is mostly work. It's local car travel on a trip, perhaps in a rental, that can be very enjoyable.

We're talking about sleeping cars, and so for full disclosure, as graduate students, for understandable financial reasons, Beverly and I paid our dues overnighting on trains by sitting up in coach. This happened primarily during our year in Germany, within the country and overnight to Denmark and to Italy. There are reasons to overnight in coach on a train, but it's no better than taking an overnight flight in coach class. On a train, sleepers are better, even humble ones, like couchettes (see below).
 
 

With rail 'n' sail, the trip can be luxurious or humble and still be enjoyable either way. Yet for those really into it, the more the better, which means the longer the trip, the better.

"SAIL" I've been overnight on fancier and simpler ships, now up to 60 voyages summarized in 2013/7. These have ranged from transatlantic ocean liners a number of times to the freighter Tuhobić (also transatlantic--Voyage 8, 1971). Not included are day trips on the Rhine and Danube, across Lake Michigan, on Long Island Sound, and in New York Harbor.
Sailings have also ranged from one single night on several occasions, such as on the Spirit of Tasmania I between Melbourne and Devonport (Tasmania) in 2010 (done twice as a round trip, Voyages 47-48), to my longest voyage, lasting seven weeks in 2004 on the Caronia around South America (Voyage 28).

RAIL But here we'll limit ourselves to rail. Unlike the above list of ships, this is NOT a summary of all overnight trains that exist or even that I've ever traveled. It does include some of the shorter one-nighters of note, but lays emphasis on the most interesting of the overnight train trips of 2-14 nights.

 
 

One-Night    One-night train trips in sleepers are brief but great, such as Amtrak's Silver Star NYC-Miami that we'll be discussing shortly when we get back to Florida, as well as many others on six continents, such as, but not limited to, Brisbane-Cairns, Cairo-Luxor, Cusco-Puno (Lake Titicaca), Chicago-San Antonio, Paris-Rome, Bangkok-Chiang Mai.
As for humble one-nighters on a sleeper, I cite the fun and adventure of that last one just mentioned, going overnight on a regular Thai train from Bangkok north to Chiang Mai in a private compartment (2010/18).

https://www.seat61.com/images/Thailand-1st-sleeper-train-large.jpg

 
 
 I had booked [a] first-class sleeper . . . The air-conditioned accommodations were basic, but comfortable, and quite inexpensive, and I was glad to see an outlet/power point so I could get writing done. An attendant came by with a picture menu for a very simple (and very inexpensive) dinner and breakfast, and off I was to Chiang Mai.
 
 

Another humble single overnight in a sleeper was even more fun, and was, again, in Asia (2009/39), on a regular Japanese train from Sapporo overnight south to Ueno (within Tokyo):

 
 
 By 5:12 it was time for my sleeper to leave, just as it was getting dark. I was wary about dining facilities, so I’d bought some food supplies of my own at the station. This was the overnight I had wanted to book long in advance along with my hotels, but couldn’t from abroad, and on arrival at Narita Airport they’d said all the single rooms were taken. What I got worked out well. It was one of many compartments for four, but only the two lowers were occupied in mine and many others, which simplified things, making things less crowded. The other guy was a middle-aged Japanese who [as I found thru some sign language] wouldn’t be going all the way, but would be changing trains at about dawn, so I’d have the compartment to myself in the morning until my arrival in Ueno at 9:38. My entire overnight experience on the train came to 16h26.

What made it quite simple is that they supplied you with those "Japanese pajamas", really a kimono, so changing clothes was not difficult. They also gave you slippers—suited as ever to petite Japanese [sizes] so that your heels hung over the back. You also had curtains to pull closed around your berth, and I got writing done (on battery) and reading. I slept very well . . .
 
 

Do understand that the four berths were in an enclosed (tho doorless) compartment. This was the only time I ever had a berth with Pullman-style curtains, but they were not on a public corridor, just across from the other guy's berth.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-1eHqg_98QLI/UuqBjYAYbpI/AAAAAAAA2Qo/_MMQRJUtrmo/s1600/DSC08920

This view of couchettes on a Japanese train is similar, tho not the same. The point is, those curtains pulled entirely around one's berth, and there were two more berths above, unoccupied, with a ladder at the window. In my case, the upper berths were lower than this, making my cubbyhole very nice and cozy, just high enough to sit up and type. Those are Japanese slippers on the right; I don't see any kimonos. But you get the idea.

Despite the language barrier, while dining on our brought-along dinners (I had some munchies and a boxed Japanese meal), we did have some hand-signal communication. After that, in my kimono, it was fun drawing back into my berth behind closed curtains, turning on the light, and writing on the laptop. I remember the experience with cozy affection. And when I woke up the next morning, I had the compartment to myself. A great experience.

https://worldtraintravel.com/images/trains/ratios/original/1024/101363272199Blue%20Train%20Map.jpg

As for luxurious one-nighters, South Africa's Blue Train (2008/9) certainly comes to mind, from Pretoria to Cape Town (above). This is a bedroom on the Blue Train (Photo by Shine 2010 auf flickr.com).

And you'll be surprised I'm sure that the modern, luxurious cruise-train version of the Orient Express from London to Venice that we took in 2002, which will be described in detail later on, is just a one-nighter.

 
 

Longer Train Trips    But looking again globally, just like longer ship voyages are compelling, so are lengthier overnighters in sleepers on trains, since both cover larger swaths of territory and ideally encompass a unified period of home-away-from-home. It's important to understand, tho, that, while one train going the whole route is a delight, the entire long-distance route might require two or more trains. So we're not going to be sticklers and always limit ourselves to just one long train route when another train might extend that route considerably and result in a more favorable trip. What follows is a selection of the more interesting of the multiple-night overnight trains I've been on, again on all six continents that have trains.

 
 

Ghan & Indian Pacific    In Australia, we'll mention the two lengthier overnight ones of the six trains I took in 2010. (The several I took the previous year in New Zealand [2009/8-11] are, alas, nowadays all day trains.)

This is the route of the Ghan (Map by Bidgee), which I took from Darwin south to Adelaide (2010/21). It's the only truly N-S transcontinental rail route in the world, taking two nights with a lengthier stop in Alice Springs (Photo by Bahnfrend). We'll note that that's typical. Many if not most of the routes we'll mention have over time shifted from being purely for local transportation to becoming destinations themselves for visitors, so the schedule often accommodates visitors in this way. Below is the route of the Indian Pacific, which I took from Sydney west to Perth (2010/23), shown here at Sydney Central (Photo by Frederick Sawyer). It takes three nights, with a stop to tour Kalgoorlie.

http://www.mappery.com/maps/Indian-Pacific-Railroad-Route-Map.jpg

 
 

E&O    Two longer ones that I took in Asia were very different from each other. One was the Eastern & Oriental Express, or E&O, (2010/16) run by Belmond, which I took north from Singapore to Bangkok, also in 2010 before continuing on to Australia (map below).

https://www.luxurytrainclub.com/wp-content/uploads/Eastern-Oriental-Express-2018-doc-Route-map.jpg

 
 

It was a luxury train, and took two nights, including tours in Penang and at the Bridge on the River Kwai. This is the E&O stopped at Kuala Lumpur Station in Malaysia, showing a dining car and sleeper (Photo by User: Two hundred percent). Particularly distinctive at the rear of the E&O is its observation car, half of which is open-air (Photo by FredTC).

It was after Bangkok that I took the above train overnight to Chiang Mai (see map), for a contrast between luxurious and humble accommodations. The name Eastern & Oriental seems odd, since the two words mean the same thing, but it's named after a hotel in Panang that had been two separate hotels next to each other, built by the builders of Raffles in Singapore.

 
 

Tibet Train    On the 2014 trip to China with the Chicago rail group that is now called the High Speed Rail Alliance, I'd asked well in advance that the trip be extended to Tibet, and it was. All other trains around China had been high-speed day trains, including the Maglev in Shanghai (2014/5), but for the seven of us that extended our stay to Tibet, this was a regular train, tho with a spectacular route and destination.

The Tibet train is officially called the Qinghai–Tibet Railway (Q=CH) because it connects Xining (X=SH) in Qinghai Province, to Lhasa in Tibet, and is meant for locals as well as visitors. The group spent two nights on the train going, then flew on from there. I spent another night returning on the train to go see Xi'an. The spectacular route and destination made up for the quite decent, yet basic sleepers. Everything was new and spotless, yet cramped. Tho the train was quite nice for what it was, it was surely the least comfortable 2 + 1 nights I've had in sleepers.

In brief, Chinese trains have cheaper Hard Sleepers for six with no doors to the compartment and Soft Sleepers for four with doors, which is what we had. Still, they're all couchettes and with little privacy. Sleeping on a couchette is like sleeping on a couch--you can stay fully dressed, or change as you wish, but you're living with, and in full view of, other people, as there are no curtains. Going I was with three other guys from the group, while next door were a couple and the group leader, making seven. Returning I was all on my own with Chinese strangers, including a married couple. All corridors have fold-down seats for people who want to step outside for a while where it's less crowded. The dining car was fine, but there were no picture menus nor translations and only Chinese-speaking waiters, making it very difficult to dine.

I will not copy here everything about those two interesting train rides, but if you're interested, I do recommend you take a look at 2014/9, which includes a lot of compartment pictures whose links I just made sure are all working.

https://www.tibettravel.org/assets/images/frank-pic/beijing-lhasa-train-map.jpg

Tho the Tibet railway technically starts in Xining, there are a few direct cross-China connections, and we took the one from Beijing as shown. Thus on the trip going we left Beijing at 20:09 on the 1st day and arrived in Lhasa at 16:00 on the 3rd day, for a two-night ride of just under 44 hours. When I came back down to Xi'an (see map) it was just the one night.

https://worldjourneys.co.nz/upload-images/World-Journeys-packageMap-El-Transcantabrico.jpg

 
 

Transcantábrico    2007 was the year I flew to Lisbon, traveled around Portugal by train, then continued up to Santiago in Spain, where I took the narrow-gauge cruise train known as the Transcantábrico. After a short stay in Santiago, I joined the train group, and was irked that we started out with an hour-long motorcoach (=bus) ride to Ferrol to get the train. But all went well, and then, similar to what we saw on the Mississippi, where a dedicated bus followed the Mississippi Queen for local excursions, this bus would meet us in towns along the way for tours.

The train trip covered seven nights in a sleeper (2007/10). I took the "classic route", one that goes across northern Spain to Bilbao, then turns back to León (see map). (There is also a shorter route that doesn't turn back to León.)

 
 
 For years, I wondered by the trip was in a peculiar wishbone shape like that and why we needed a bus ride. Why not catch the train in Santiago?. So I just checked. I knew Spain was particularly awash with different gauges, Iberian broad, some narrow, plus standard for the new high-speed routes. Then I found this map of all narrow-gauge train routes in Spain (Map by Manchego & Jotamar), and it all finally made sense. Aside from a few bits and pieces, the north coast of Spain seems to be the home of narrow gauge (metric) rail. Ferrol is where narrow gauge starts, so of course we needed a bus ride to get there. (There is a broad-gauge train from Santiago, but it's not that frequent.) We see that the two branches join in Bilbao, so a Ferrol-Bilbao-León trip makes perfect sense, even tho the line runs just across the border to the French town of Hendaye (Hendaya in Spanish).

While we're at it, let's look at the whole picture of the Spanish tangle of gauges (Map by Manchego). Blue are the new, standard-gauge high-speed routes, red the broad-gauge (Iberian) routes, and of course, green is narrow gauge. You can see where I came up from Portugal on broad gauge, crossing at Vigo, to Santiago, which does connect to Ferrol. Also notice other places where broad meets narrow, particularly Oviedo, which we'll discuss later.
 
 

From León, I took regular train back to Bilbao, and connected to the ferry across the Bay of Biscay north to Portsmouth, that was recently discussed.

Tho we recently said that the Spanish name for the Bay of Biscay is the Golfo de Vizcaya, which yields the name of Biscayne Bay in Miami, the Spanish in particular also like to refer to the waters directly off their north coast as the Mar Cantábrico, as confirmed by this French map (Map by Emmanuel Boutet, Creative Commons CC-BY-SA-2.5). The name in English, rarely used, if at all, would be the Cantabrian Sea, and thus this train, who route runs along that shoreline, is El Transcantábrico, or The Transcantabrian.

 
 

The narrow gauge of this route is metric, with an inner width between rails of 1,000 mm (3 ft 3 3⁄8 in). It's the only luxury cruise train that's narrow gauge. Therefore, the train itself, tho quite comfortable, is also narrower than one might picture.

https://www.railtours.at/media/grafiken/hotel/infobildgross/7C495CB1-F498-55EB-8DF92585C8221A8B.jpg

You can see that this lounge doesn't have space to have the couches perpendicular to the sides, as you might expect. One thing I found quite amusing was the following.

https://d1ez3020z2uu9b.cloudfront.net/imagecache/blog-photos/5505.jpg

https://www.railtours.at/media/grafiken/hotel/infobildgross/7C495CB1-F498-55EB-8DF92585C8221A8B.jpg

 
 

When walking down the corridor in a sleeper (first picture) the width was reasonable, but kept on narrowing a bit, then widening again. When I first got to my compartment, I had to laugh. The beds were, as usual perpendicular to the sides of the train, but to make the beds long enough, the wall had to jut out into the corridor. It worked well, but I thought the whole idea was great fun.

There was one thing that was very unique to this train. It didn't have a dining car. A continental breakfast was served in the lounges, but in my experience there were no other meals. If you'll note on the map, there were many, many local stops en route, and the train rarely ran more than 1 ½ to 2 hours before stopping. Part of that was for walking tours, or bus tours on the dedicated bus that followed us. But we also went to restaurants! We'd stop for lunch at a restaurant, then in the evening, stop for dinner at a restaurant in another town. It gave a very local feeling and was quite unusual both for sightseeing and gastronomy.

 
 

I enjoyed the trip, but nevertheless found two major defects that bothered me. You'd expect that with two restaurant visits a day, at least one would be a light meal, either at midday, in the American style, or in the evening, in the European style. But that didn't happen. Twice a day we'd stop for a huge "Sunday-afternoon-style" meal. It was all great food and the restaurants were trying hard. But it was too much. As I recall, it reached the point where I skipped a couple of restaurant stops entirely, and just stayed on the train. Too much food is too much food.

 
 

The other problem was, tho I love to sightsee, and what we were shown was great, it was often very local and very repetitive. I love architecture and history, but there's only a limited number of old churches that one can take at a time. The low point came near the end of the trip. Instead of the tour being walkable from the train, or via a short bus ride, there was full day on the bus to some uninteresting, repetitive towns. Worse, the bus would leave the train, skip part of the train ride, and join again at another town (see map). I'd had enough and spent that day on the train. Still, despite these two weak points involving overabundance, it was a fine week-long trip.

 
 

Tren Crucero & Copper Canyon    We now move from an overnight train with sleepers but no dining car to two overnight trains with dining cars but no sleepers! What's that all about? But it's all just fine, and I definitely want to include them both in this listing of "multiple nights on a train" because they're similar enough and much too good to leave out.

In 2015 I went to Ecuador, first to the Galápagos, then to take the Tren Crucero from Guayaquil on the coast up to Quito in the mountains. The fact that it's actually called the Cruise Train tells you that the route is now used primarily for visitors, and less for local use. The trip ran for four days and three nights, and since there's a river in the way, the Tren Crucero (Map by jkan997) actually starts in Durán, opposite Guayaquil. This train also runs on a narrow-gauge route, which is noticeable by the narrow width of the lunch-and-snack car. The back of its observation car is also spectacularly open-air (Both Photos by amalavida.tv).

The discussion is located in 2015/15-16, and describes the numerous interesting stops we made. But three nights were off the train. The first day we stopped in Bucay for a fabulous lunch and entertainment at the Hacienda La Danesa, but they're not a hotel, so we stopped instead at the nearby Hostería D'Franco, which was nice enough. But the next two hotels were fabulous, places I'd never have found by myself. The second night in Riobamba, we were at the Hostería La Andaluza, and the third night in Latacunga we stopped at the Hostería La Ciénaga. These two were both historic country manor houses, up in the mountains, with fireplaces aroar and great dinners. This was all unforgettable, that I choose to include the Tren Crucero in this list.

https://coppercanyon.org/files/2011/06/copper-canyon-train-map.jpg

 
 

In 2007 (see 2007/2), I took two trains to El Paso TX, walked into Mexico (see 2017/14), and flew to Los Mochis on the Pacific to take the train thru the Copper Canyon (map above, showing the proximity of TX and NM), which lies within the Sierra Madre Occidental. The name of the route is actually the Chihuahua al Pacífico, since it connects that city to the ocean, but it's referred to as the Chepe, since CH, pronounced "ché" is a letter of the Spanish alphabet and P is "pé", yielding "Chepe". (It's like saying "emcee" for MC, master of ceremonies, or "deejay" for DJ, disk jockey.)

 
 

It's a regular railroad, for freight and local transit, all narrow gauge. One Economy Class train leaves each terminal daily for local travelers, and one Premier First Class leaves each end daily as well, which is what visitors will want. There are no sleepers, as these are all day trains.

As the map shows, what one wants to experience are the views of the very scenic series of six canyons referred to jointly as the Copper Canyon. This six-canyon system is four-times larger than the Grand Canyon, and four of the canyons are deeper, although the Grand Canyon is larger overall than any of the individual canyons of the Copper Canyon system. Thus, outside of Mexico, this Chepe trip is referred to as the Copper Canyon trip. There are also numerous bridges and tunnels that add to the enjoyment of the trip. However the most scenic part, as shown on the map, is on the western part of the route.

 
 

On a practical basis, visiting would be difficult because there's only one train a day in each direction, which does NOT stop for visiting. Therefore, tour companies organize a schedule, and I got in touch with a local Mexican one that did an excellent job. As on the Ecuador trip, hotel stops are necessary, except here, the train doesn't wait for you. It ended up being a six-night tour, after which I flew to Mexico City.

 
 

On arrival at Los Mochis, the Balderrama Hotels tour company gave me an all-inclusive voucher book with four hotel reservations and three train connections, and the way they set up the trip never interfered with the feeling of independence I enjoy when traveling. The train, the hotels, and the independence is why I rank this hotel-stop trip among the best.

https://bbqboy.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/el-chepe-route.jpg

 
 

HOTEL 1: This more detailed map will be more helpful. There is little to see in the first low-lying segment to El Fuerte, nor in the final segment to Chihuahua, so on that arrival day, I didn't spend the night in Los Mochis, but was privately driven—just me—for about 1.5 hours, to a charming, historic Colonial-style former mansion in El Fuerte, La Posada del Hidalgo (The Nobleman’s Inn) for my first night (below).

https://www.catadelvino.com/imgproducts/5be47ae70755b.jpg

 
 

CHEPE 1: The next morning I was brought to the Chepe station in El Fuerte and off we went. You could tell by the width of the train that the line was narrow-gauge (Both Photos by Robert FERREOL). It turns out that, contrary to what I expected, the area is very lush and green, and there are trees and plants everywhere, with are views down to the rivers going through the canyons. This is the hairpin curve near Témoris (see map), used to gain or lose altitude in a shorter distance (Photo by David Broad).

 
 

HOTEL 2: The schedule called to stay in two hotels in the mountains, but to take best advantage of the infrequent rail schedule, my own schedule called for me to pass by Bahuichivo this day and get off at the station called Posada Barrancas (Canyons Inn) instead, the higher of the two, where I was picked up to stay at the Posada Mirador for two nights. The name means Viewpoint Inn because it's located right on the edge of the canyon with views from every room, as shown below.

https://images.trvl-media.com/hotels/1000000/910000/904600/904531/1b91e8f7_z.jpg

https://media-cdn.tripadvisor.com/media/photo-s/03/e1/17/4b/posada-barrancas-mirador.jpg

 
 

In 2007/2 I wrote: It’s rustic and remote, and up on a hill in adobe style, but rooms and public areas again have those log beams supporting a wood roof. It has the atmosphere of a mountain lodge. A Mexican quartet entertained in the evening. . . . There’s a large terrace for viewing, and the rooms have their own balconies. You could see below a tiny river glistening at the bottom of one of the canyons. . . . [T]he lobby has two huge roaring fireplaces going. But there were snow flurries on the terrace in the early evening, and people were regularly standing or sitting around the fireplaces.

 
 

Altho it was January, the weather at sea level en route was quite comfortable. Yet because of the 2,300 m (7,546 ft) altitude of the hotel, it did get chilly. I must say I have a clear image of evenings sitting quite comfortably chatting with other guests in front of the hotel fireplace, as shown below (sorry for the writing at the bottom, but the fireplace memory is a very dear one).

https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https://images.trvl-media.com/hotels/1000000/910000/904600/904531/e3aa4e63_z.jpg&imgrefurl=https://www.orbitz.com/Copper-Canyon-Hotels-Hotel-Mirador.h904531.Hotel-Information&tbnid=zMiRw-AiGA2kJM&vet=1&docid=nOf1lqlHfWC8VM&w=1000&h=667&q=fireplace,+hotel+mirador,+copper+canyon&source=sh/x/im

 
 

Since we were in the area of the highest points of the Copper Canyon, and because the train schedule was so limited, I had been scheduled to stay here two nights, to tour the other areas of highest altitude. The next day, guests were taken northeast by car (see map) on a drive to Creel (an English name, and pronounced that way). While only the railroad and no highway crosses the full length of the Copper Canyon, there are some local roads, especially in this eastern end. At 2,330 m (7,644 ft), Creel Station (Photo by Foto Eule) is only about 30 m (98 ft) higher than the hotel, but being at another location allows for additional canyon views (Photo by David Broad).

 
 

The next day we left the hotel, and first toured again northeast, this time to Divisadero, a train stop without a village, but at the continental divide. In Spanish, divisar is to "view at a distance", so the name would mean something like "point for distant views", which is just what you get. The Divisadero station (Photo by Cocojorgemedina), at 2,400 m (7,874 ft), is equal in height (click) to other high points in the area (Photo by panza.rayada), and the view down into the canyon (Photo by Smallchief) looks down 1,500 m (4,921 ft).

CHEPE 2 & HOTEL 3: The same day, now ready to go downward back towards the Pacific, I took Chepe again (Photo by Robert FERREOL) to Bahuichivo (ba.wi.CHI.vo), where a hotel van picked me up for a 14 km (8.7 mi) drive to Cerocahui (se.ro.KA.wi)—not on map—to the ultra-remote and wonderfully ultra-rustic Hotel Misión for two more nights. We were now at a lower altitude: 1,620 m (5,315 ft).

https://cdn.easy-rez.com/production/hotels/4fd94d310711e7fab1f725b0365071b5/uploads/.banner/73.jpg_0.93049000-1444859692.jpg

https://cdn.easy-rez.com/production/hotels/4fd94d310711e7fab1f725b0365071b5/public/.banner/selecciones_lic/hotel/dsc_5081-hdr.jpg_1920x820_0-273.4719101123595.jpg

 
 

Again a wonderful roaring fireplace in the lobby. The hotel had its own vineyards adjacent and made and served their own wine. I made sure I visited the 1680s mission church across the road after which the hotel is named. Perhaps most unusual of all, there was no central heating in the rooms, but instead a round cast-iron stove with piles of wood next to it. This very do-it-yourself style enhanced the rural atmosphere, tho I had someone start it up, and it was very comfortable overnight.

A drive out of here was spectacular. We went to the Mirador Cerro del Gallego (Gallego Mountain Viewpoint), which is not only cantilevered out over the abyss, but has glass blocks in the floor so you can see directly below (Photo by Robert FERREOL). We were looking down into the deepest canyon of all, and the most spectacular. If you're not dizzy yet, try this:

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/KSkriis9KWw/maxresdefault.jpg

 
 

CHEPE 3 & HOTEL 4: The last train ride went down beyond El Fuerte all the way to Los Mochis, where I was picked up and brought to Baldarrama's Hotel Santa Anita, an elegant urban charmer. The next morning I'd be flying to Mexico City to continue the trip. This is the last paragraph from the writeup, and it summarizes why I'm including this hotel-stay train trip in this listing.

 
 
 I thought this Copper Canyon trip would have two main attractions, the Canyon itself, and the rail trip on this most historic route. I enjoyed both very much, yet was surprised to particularly enjoy the third interesting feature, the four charming hotels which were an integral part of the experience that I hadn’t expected them to be, giving me a most unusual feeling of traditional Mexico. I liked all of the hotels, but am surprised to find myself saying that the ultra-remote Hotel Misión, where I was forced to slow down and relax into a slow-paced, other-era ambiance, reading my book in front of the lobby fireplace, dining with a handful of other independent travelers, and stoking my own stove in my room, turned out to be the most pleasant experience of the four.
 
 

UPDATING RECORDS: The list of "Updated Altitude Statistics" is located at the end of 2017/16, after the Peru/Bolivia trip. But as I was writing the above, it struck me that I had somehow forgotten to include the high altitudes of the Copper Canyon trip in those lists. Also when reviewing them, I found two other adjustments that were necessary.
If you go to the end of 2017/16, in the list of Highest Railways Ridden, you'll now find the addition of (1) Mexico's Chepe, (2) the USA's Moffat Tunnel, and (3) the USA's Raton Pass Tunnel.
Below that, in the list of Highest Overnight Stays, you'll see the addition of the Posada Mirador.

 
 

Rovos Rail: Pride of Africa    In 2008 it was time to add southern and central Africa to my North African experience when Beverly and I, as part of a long trip in 1965, went from Cairo south to Aswan (Map by Jkan997) on a comfortable overnight sleeper round trip. Now I wanted to include two other, longer train trips that I was able to coordinate nicely.

https://worldtraintravel.com/images/trains/ratios/original/1024/101363272199Blue%20Train%20Map.jpg

https://www.rovos.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/RVR-Map-DAR.jpg

After some days in Pretoria, first came the single overnight on the elegant Blue Train (first link) from Pretoria to Cape Town (2008/9), as illustrated earlier under shorter trips. Then, after a few days in Cape Town, it was the 14-night Rovos Rail Pride of Africa trip (second link-click) from Cape Town to Dar es Salaam, with numerous stops (2008/10-11). This was the Pride of Africa's dining car (Photo by David Brossard), and it, too, had the back of its observation car open-air (Photo by Bob Adams).

I was among those that did an add-on (as with Tibet) by plane from Dar to the Serengeti Plains, Ngorongoro Crater, and Zanzibar (2008/12), then flew to Switzerland for a revisit and to ride some trains, then took a sleeper to Hamburg (where I met friends Paul and Mayra for the first time) to sail home on the QM2.

But the point here is the Rovos Rail trip. It was splendid, with animal safaris, and much more. Still, I have two critiques of it.

 
 

Gaps & Duplicate Nights    I have two pet peeves (at least) when traveling. For the first one, let me use the metaphor of a race. If someone is running a marathon, but you then find out that in the middle of it he rode a bike for a stretch, you wouldn't say he ran the whole marathon, because of the blatant gap. I find that applies to travel. As a first example, we'll take the cruise on the eastern Erie Canal (2017/6). One possible side trip they had was a full day bus trip to Cooperstown for baseball fans. But to do it, they'd leave the ship at about Lock 20, spend the day away, and join the trip much further along at about Lock 11. Wasn't the point of the trip to see the eastern Erie Canal? Such a gap would ruin that, to my estimation.

A second example we mentioned above, toward the end of the Transcantábrico. The full-day bus tour was included, but fortunately, I found what they were to see repetitious, and declined to join them that day. But in addition, they left the train at one point, and joined it way down the line. Gaps are a no-no.

Finally, there's the cruise around South America on the Caronia. A side trip they offered was to leave the ship somewhere in Peru, maybe Lima, fly to Machu Pikchu for a couple of nights in the on-site hotel, then to fly back to the ship in Chile, perhaps it was at Arica. I didn't like the idea because it sounded super-hectic, wasteful of the cruise, was extremely expensive, and wouldn't have been conducive to Beverly's wheelchair. But it also left a gap in the cruise for some distance between countries, and also involved duplicate nights. The already paid-for cabins on the ship would go unused and wasted, while the participants were paying for a hotel stay at the same time. Perhaps neither of these pet peeves bother you, but they do me.

http://thesafarisource.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Map_VictoriaFallsTown.jpg

These thoughts affected the Rovos trip twice. The stop at Victoria Falls was a spectacular highlight, and I was sure to purchase a helicopter flight over the falls (see above map, top). But the train station (see bottom center of map) was across from the glitzy—and pricey--Victoria Falls Hotel, and instead of staying on the train, we walked across the street and spent a night (with two days) in the hotel. It was a very nice hotel, but our compartments on the train languished while we were at our duplicate lodgings, which we were also paying for, built into the price of the journey. This NEVER happened on the Siberia trip—see below.

 
 

Look back at the Rovos map, and I'll now cite something we discussed recently, in 2017/14, where I talked about walking across borders, in this case, from South Africa to Botswana. That was fun do to, and staying for two nights at the Tau Game Lodge was another highlight of the trip—where else could I look out my ground-floor room window and watch a group of elephants drinking at a pond just steps away? But going there was even more of an interruption of the train trip.

http://www.sleeping-out.co.za/ftp/Maps/3010-M-111345.jpg

 
 

Coming from Pretoria, we got off at Zeerust, and were bused (!), with partial luggage, some considerable distance (see map) to the Madikwe Game Preserve, in green, to the Tau Game Lodge at the north end. We spent two (wonderful) nights there, then were bused to the nearby border between South Africa and Botswana and walked over to Gaberone as described earlier. Then the train took us north via Victoria Falls to Dar es Salaam, where the last night was in an included hotel in Dar. It was a great trip, but let's look at train time.

The Rovos trip is considered a 14-night trip. And it is. But as to train time, I break it up this way:
Train from Cape Town via Pretoria to Zeerust: 3 nights, all within South Africa.
Tau Game Lodge, South Africa: 2 nights.
Train from Gaberone to Dar es Salaam (including Vic Falls & Dar hotels): 9 nights, none of which is in South Africa and is entirely within Botswana, Zimbabwe, Zambia, and Tanzania.
I'm considering this package as two separate train trips. The first three-night part is a South African train trip to two nights at a game lodge within the country. End of story. The one night south on the Blue Train from Pretoria to Cape Town is then balanced for me with the three nights returning north from Cape Town to Pretoria—and a bit further to Zeerust.
The second trip is an international one of 9 nights within four countries. How the entire package is presented and sold, and how I consider it are thus two different things.

 
 

North American Rail Routes: United States    I've been on many trains in the US and Canada, and on several more than once. Actually I've been on every overnight route Amtrak and Via have, and several day trains as well, so this is not an attempt to be specific or be comprehensive.

But do look at this Amtrak System Map (Map by Chumwa) of long-distance routes, and routes that can be combined into a still longer trip. I'll repeat the SAME map here for easier inspection:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c5/Amtrak_System_Map.svg/2000px-Amtrak_System_Map.svg.png

Geography is funny—look how Chicago got to be such a hub for routes west. From the east to Chicago, one can take the Lakeshore Limited from New York or Boston (or the Capitol Limited from Washington), then connect at Chicago, for a total of three nights; then connect there either to the Empire Builder to Seattle or Portland, or to the California Zephyr to San Francisco (via the Moffat Tunnel--see above), or to the Southwest Chief to Los Angeles (via the Raton Pass Tunnel).

The north-south routes are, since they're shorter, not surprisingly, one-nighters. You have to go east-west for the longer trips. There is still officially a single coast-to-coast train, the Sunset Limited. It had been running from New Orleans to Los Angeles, and was then extended to Florida—at first to Miami, which is when Beverly and I took it westbound some time back. It was probably about a three-night trip. Then Amtrak cut it a bit shorter, starting in Orlando. But then came Hurricane Katrina in 2005, and Gulf Coast infrastructure was lost (thin red line), so the train now runs west from New Orleans again, tho we are waiting for full restoration. However, travel on the Crescent from New York to New Orleans, with at least an overnight there, can be combined with the Sunset for a three-night trip. So can other routes south out of Chicago be paired up for this trip. The Texas Eagle out of Chicago actually combines with the Sunset westward to Los Angeles. When it does that, the Eagle becomes the longest Amtrak route in the system at 4,390 km (2,728 mi).

 
 

Unique Quality of Trains    Having just spoken about trains splitting and joining, this might be the time to interrupt the narrative for a moment and talk about a quality we don't always think about, but which is essential to how trains operate, especially if we wish to understand the Orient Express. Ships, planes, even cars go from A to B, and arrive as a single unit (unless ships or military vehicles are traveling in a convoy, but those are more than a single unit to begin with). Trains, on the other hand, are the only form of transportation that can break up into pieces, or join together willy-nilly. The cars/coaches/carriages being pulled by an engine are like beads on a string or charms on a charm bracelet, which can be added or subtracted, even as the whole remains intact as one unit.

The word for "train" in many European languages is based on the imagery of dragging and so the vehicle is likened to a "dragger", which is easy to envision. In Russian and Ukrainian the imagery is more of the vehicle being a "traveler", which is also very logical. (For a fuller discussion, see 2014/3 Ctrl-F: The Word.) But in European Portuguese, the word is comboio, obviously based on the vehicle being a "convoy" of coaches/carriages/cars. So put aside for the moment the imagery of a train being a dragger or a traveler and think of the single unit imitating a convoy of cars/coaches/carriages. And convoys can split up, or join together, en masse or by single vehicles. That's how trains work.

 
 
 While the above has been traditionally absolutely true, recent decades have seen a variation of the traditional train in the form of an articulated vehicle, in which one car blends into another, usually at a pivoting area within an accordion or concertina enclosure. In this sense, a train becomes much more of a single unit, almost one single long car, with no separations or additions possible. This special case will be discussed at another time.
 
 

Kurswagen/Thru Car    We'll be looking later at whole trains splitting apart or joining together. But we'll also see that a single car or two might join the train en route, or might leave the train before the end of the trip. I do not see a good name for these "mini-trains", which gain or lose their own engine according to whether they're on their own. In English, the term is "thru car/coach/carriage", which is not descriptive to me. Don't all cars end up going thru somewhere? The French name is voiture directe and I have the same argument—aren't all trains direct? The German term is Kurswagen (plural unchanged). It's the first term I learned for this feature, and the most descriptive. Kurs rhymes with bourse, as in French. It can mean a school course, but also a "route or direction of travel" as in a ship keeping to its course. Wagen (VA.gen), a car, is obvious from "Volkswagen", and also refers to a car on a train. I think Kurswagen describes a car like we're talking about that arrives with its own locomotive to join a train, then leaves the train picking up another locomotive, and will be the term I'll be using.

Now look at it this way. A Kurswagen (or several at once) changes trains so that passengers don't have to. It begins the journey attached to one train, and arrives at its destination attached to another train. It appears most frequently as a sleeping car or couchette car, but can be a regular coach as well. They've always been common in Continental Europe, tho less common now than they were in the past.

I have even more imagery. I recently had an item I bought online delivered from California by FedEx Ground. As I tracked it, it went from A to B; after while from B to C, and so on until it had crossed to New York. It wasn't on its own truck. At each destination, it rode along on the next truck to the next destination. Now take that image of that package "hitchhiking" between FedEx trucks, and picture a Kurswagen or two doing much the same thing.

I found this example: in 2010-2011, there was a sleeping car going from Basel to Moscow. It did not get there on its own, but "hitchhiked" attached to other trains.
From Basel to Hannover it was attached to a Basel-to-Copenhagen train.
From Hannover to Warsaw it was attached mid-route to an Amsterdam-to-Warsaw train.
From Warsaw to Brest it was attached mid-route to a Bohumin [Czechoslovakia]-to-Brest train. (Brest is on the Russian border where for a bogie [undercarriage] exchange is made—more later).
From Brest to Moscow it was attached to a Brest-to-Moscow train.
Note that in this only slightly unusual situation, this "mini-train" never had a locomotive of its own other than to be shunted between trains. It's more usual to have a dedicated locomotive, tho, added or removed as necessary.

 
 

There are all sorts of possibilities. Let's look at some examples in the US as already mentioned.
The Sunset Limited westbound leaves New Orleans M W Sa via San Antonio to Los Angeles. Eastbound it leaves Los Angeles Su W F. It takes two days each way.
The Texas Eagle (Both Maps by jkan997) runs daily between Chicago and San Antonio. On the days the Sunset continues to Los Angeles, the Eagle joins ("marries") the Sunset at San Antonio, and the two trains continue together to Los Angeles. Both trains keep their own identity, at least superficially, giving the Eagle the longest Amtrak route, as mentioned earlier. On the return trip, of course, you have to make sure you're in the proper part of the train if you're going beyond San Antonio, since the train will split ("divorce") there with the Eagle going to Chicago and the Sunset going to New Orleans.

 
 

All the above is absolutely true, but needs to be taken with a grain of salt. The Sunset is a full-sized train with several sleepers, day coaches, a dining car, lounge, and baggage car. That's equally true for the Eagle, but only before the merger. In actuality, only one sleeper and one day coach from the Eagle act as Kurswagen to join the full-length Sunset. It remains absolutely true that that makes the Eagle the longest present Amtrak route, but do not picture two separate trains on that line going to Los Angeles. They go in wedded bliss. And of course, divorce on the way back.

http://trainweb.org/usarail/texaseagle_to_sunsetlimited.gif

I was delighted to find this diagram of how it works. Oddly, the two Eagle cars are not next to each other on arrival at New Orleans. But they join to each other and join the rear of the Sunset.

The other two examples cited earlier involve the combined train always keeping its same name despite splits and rejoins. On the Amtrak map, find Seattle and Portland on the west coast. The Empire Builder, under that same name, leaves each city, then joins in Spokane to become one single train to reach Chicago.

http://www.trainweb.org/usarail/empirebuilder_train.gif

 
 

This is what the two segments look like between departure westward to the merging point in Spokane. They both have sleepers and coaches, but before the merger, only Seattle has a dining car and only Portland has a lounge. Based on size, the Portland segment seems to be the minor one, but both are officially the Empire Builder. Westbound, the train splits again in Spokane.

http://www.trainweb.org/usarail/lakeshorelimited_train.jpg

Similarly, the Lake Shore Limited leaves both Boston and New York (check the map) westbound for Chicago, and join in Albany, splitting on the eastbound return. Both maintain the Lakeshore name thruout. From these consists, they seem closer in length, tho the Boston segment might be considered the minor one.

https://traintracks.eu/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/ec213-mimara-frankfurt-zugzielanzeiger.jpg

 
 

It has been common in Europe to use Kurswagen to service additional cities, tho the custom is gradually declining. The above picture gives an excellent example of this.

We're standing on track 10 in Frankfurt am Main. Disregard the two lower entries, which show later trains on this track. Leaving at 8:20 this morning is train EC 113. I had to look it up, but it's a named train I've heard of, the Blauer Enzian (Blue Gentian, a flower). It lists a couple of early stops, then München/Munich, with the final destination in Klagenfurt's Hauptbahnhof (Main Station) in southern Austria. But note the white strip on top which says there's a Kurswagen to Zagreb's Glavni (Main Station) in Croatia. The small graphic on the right shows the setup of the train, a 2nd class coach, a 1st class coach, a dining or snack car, a luggage van for bikes, and another 2nd class car. It's reasonable to assume that this last car is the Kurswagen, easily separable from the main train at the splitting point. Let's follow this route, knowing that one car is going further than all the others.

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/59/97/97/599797144a2ca0432d5c9d3c88f3200c.jpg

 
 

I checked the schedule to confirm, so follow the route on the above rail map: Frankfurt, Darmstadt, Heidelberg, Stuttgart, Ulm, Augsburg, München, Rosenheim, (entering Austria) Salzburg, Bischofshofen (misspelled on map), Schwarzach-Sankt Veit, Bad Gastein, Spittal, Villach, Klagenfurt. But that's what the main part of the train did, not quite what the Kurswagen to Zagreb did.

The Kurswagen might have conceivably gone to Klagenfurt, then continued further from there, but checking a map onboard the train, it becomes obvious where the split would be happening.

https://www.holidaysonlocation.com/images/rail/austria-slovenia-croatia-map.jpg

 
 

From this extension of the rail map, we see you can't go from Klagenfurt to Zagreb directly. As you see, the Kurswagen must have "set its own Kurs" as of Villach, where it would have been detached. Another engine would have picked the one car up to cross into Slovenia, surely stopping in Ljubljana, and then into Croatia, to Zagreb. It certainly would have been impractical and highly inefficient to have sent the Zagreb car on its own from Frankfurt. That's the efficiency of Kurswagen/thru cars/voitures directes.

https://www.viarail.ca/sites/all/files/media/images/discover/trajets_Canada_en.gif

 
 

North American Rail Routes: Canada    Back to North America. Via Rail Canada (above) has mostly day trains. Running for one overnight is the Ocean (Montreal-Halifax) and running two nights are the Hudson Bay (Winnipeg-Churchill) and the Canadian (Toronto-Vancouver). But Canada is the basis for two particularly unusual trips I put together.

 
 

Churchill    In 2011, I decided to go to Churchill, Manitoba, to see the polar bears, experience North America's north coast on Hudson Bay, but also to experience the Winnipeg-Churchill train. Some people fly to Churchill, others fly to Winnipeg to take the train thru the wilderness. I, on the other hand, decided to connect the east and north coasts of North America by rail—round trip (2011/27-28-29).

I took Amtrak's Maple Leaf, the day train, from NYC to Toronto, and spent the night in a hotel. I then took the Canadian towards Vancouver for one overnight, but got off in Winnipeg and spent a night there. I then took the Hudson Bay for two nights to Churchill. The total one-way was five overnights, three on sleepers, two in hotels. After a marvelous visit to Churchill on North America's north coast, I repeated the trip back to NYC in the same way. Leaving Churchill on the train, I met Georg Witschell, the German Ambassador to Canada, who was also traveling solo, but just to Winnipeg, and we had some great conversations in both German and English. He's since been posted to Jakarta, Indonesia, and remains on my mailing list. Great trip. Good memories.

 
 

Canada Coast-to-Coast    My second time around the world was by plane in 2010, and included those visits mentioned above to Thailand and Australia, also Dubai. But my first time around the world in 2005 was much more unique, since that was my Round the World by Rail trip.

It all started with my signing up for the Golden Eagle, the two-week cruise train on the Trans-Siberian route, which I of course chose to do advantageously westbound, a point we discussed in the last posting. It was suggested that one fly to Vladivostok, then home from Moscow, but I felt that was wasteful, a misuse of long-distance travel, and anyway, I like longer trips. So I decided to end the trip by continuing from Moscow west to the Atlantic, then take the QM2 home. We'll get back to that.

To circumnavigate the globe by rail would involve crossing North America as well. Good. That would get me closer to Vladivostok. But I'd crossed the US coast-to-coast on single (two-train) trips before. I'd also been on Canadian trains to both coasts—but not on one single trip! So my solution was to do two things simultaneously, go round the world, and, as part of it, also to cross Canada coast-to-coast in a single trip.

Since I'd be starting and ending the entire trip in NYC (see 2005/6), that involved a start-up segment to Canada. I took the day train, the Adirondack, from NYC to Montréal, then stayed the night. I then took the Ocean overnight from Montréal to Halifax, and stayed there a bit. Thus, the start-up comprised two trains, with one overnight in a sleeper, plus hotels.

For the Canada Coast-to-Coast segment, I took the Ocean from Halifax back to Montréal for one night, but connected directly there to a commuter day train to Toronto, where I stayed one night. Finally, the Canadian took me over two nights from Toronto to Vancouver, where I stayed one night before flying, via Seoul, to Vladivostok. This segment involved three trains, with three overnights on two of them, plus hotels.

No one has ever told me they also went around the world by train, or even went coast-to-coast in Canada in one fell swoop, which I'm very pleased with. We now come to Asia, more accurately, Eurasia.

 
 

Lengthy Passenger Routes in Eurasia    Our purpose here is still not to be comprehensive. We've discussed the odd one-night trains of interest in the Americas, Australia, and Africa, and there are others. Mostly, we've discussed passenger trains that run overnight for two or more nights in the Americas (the US and Canada do well there), Australia (also does well), and Africa.

https://geology.com/world/asia-map.gif

But we now come to Eurasia, and we'll be referring to it as one unit, as well as to the fiction of it being two continents, which is merely a cultural custom. By far, Eurasia is mostly Asia, which is what the title of this map indicates it purports to show, with puny Europe in the corner (click). But keep in mind: long routes can more easily be found crossing large land masses. Hold on to this map.

The Asian part of Eurasia seems to be the best place so far to find really long, multi-night passenger routes. The longest passenger train route in the world, in both distance and nights, is run by the [North] Korean State RW between Pyongyang and Moscow. The route is 10,267 km (6,380 mi) long, the train makes 157 stops, and takes about 8.5 days. But this route being North Korean, there's not too much more to say about it, other than it's rather suspicious how small North Korea can run its own train all the way to Moscow. (It doesn't. More to follow.)

Big Rail in the Asian part of Eurasia seems to be concentrated in three countries. I saw a list of 131 trains in India that run overnight. Many seemed to indicate just one overnight, but I counted eight that took 2.5, 3, or 3+ days.

Moving north, China is famously into rail on a massive scale, particularly high-speed. The longest is international (see below), but domestically, I saw a list of 26 overnight trains within China that ran for 1.5, 2, 2.5 days, plus one that ran for 3 days. This included the Beijing-Lhasa one I took, plus others to Lhasa from Guangzhou (Canton) and Shanghai. Ürümqi (Q=CH) in far western China (see map) was another popular destination, with overnight trains coming in from twelve other Chinese cities as well as across the border from Kazakhstan.

Russia is the third Big Rail provider in Eurasia. Sending trains east into Central Asia, Moscow is connected with Bishkek [Kyrgyzstan] in about 3 days, Andijan [Uzbekistan] in about 3 days, Tashkent [Uzbekistan] in about 3.5 days, and Dushanbe [Tajikstan] in about 4 days.

 
 

Trans-Siberian    But of course, Russia also famously connected eastward with East Asia, both domestically and internationally, which brings us to the most famous—and really only--long-distance route in the area, the Trans-Siberian, and that will be the center of our next concentration.

 
 
 Its full name is a mouthful: Транссиби́рская железнодорóжная магистрáль / Transsibírskaya zhelyeznodorózhnaya magistrál' (Trans-Siberian Railway Main Line), tho you can just shorten it to the first word, so it's the Transsibirskaya, not too difficult. But even in Russian, it has the shorter nickname Трансси́б /Transsíb, stressed on the last syllable. Nevertheless, the English nickname, Trans-Sib, is not.
 
 

There is no such train called the Trans-Siberian Express. The Trans-Siberian tracks function as a service, a cluster of routes, used by a whole range of trains across southern Siberia, including numerous Russian domestic trains over shorter routes, plus a handful of direct international trains, both Russian and Chinese, to Mongolia and China. The Trans-Siberian route is double-tracked and electrified all the way from Moscow to Vladivostok, and on some parts of the line freight trains rumble past every few minutes. To review its history, in 2005/8 I said:

 
 
 When American and Canadian routes westward to the Pacific were being established, they didn’t start on the east coast. They didn’t need to, since there was already a railroad network available in the east. They started the transcontinental routes well inland. Similarly, when it was decided to build a Eurasian transcontinental route from the traditional European Russia eastward, it was started well east of the already established rail network within Russia, already connected to Western Europe. . . .

In the same railbuilding period, the early 1880’s, when the US and Canada were laying rails westward to the Pacific, Tsar Aleksander III decreed it was time for Russia to lay rails eastward to the Pacific. Work started east of the Urals, extending the established network. The tsar called it at the time the Большой Сибирский Путь / Bol’shoy Sibirskiy Put’, the "Great Siberian Way". . . . The railroad was essentially built between 1891 and 1916, but it wasn’t until well into the 20th century that the whole route was upgraded to appropriate safety standards.
 
 

For a bit of historical flavor, this is Tsarevich Nikolai Aleksandrovich at a groundbreaking ceremony in Vladivostok in 1891 for the Trans-Sib. And as for a painting I find quite charming, this is the Transsibirskaya c1913 as painted by Frédéric de Haenen (qv), who was native Dutch, but naturalized French and painted extensively in Russia in that period.

 
 
 I also said: In the earliest years [there was something seemingly quite unique,] the church car. On the original trains over a century ago, one car, often the last one, was fully outfitted as a Russian Orthodox church. . . . Actually, there was really quite a valid reason for having the church car. Many, if not most, Siberian towns and cities didn’t have churches, and the church car, a church on wheels, filled a real need.
 
 

Later, in 2013 on the China trip, I added some interesting additional comments and pictures about the Trans-Siberian, including church cars, also modern hospital cars. I also included a "don't miss" section with pictures of the Fabergé Jeweled Easter Egg showing Trans-Siberian Railway, which is kept in a Kremlin museum today. Take a look at 2013/24 Ctrl-F: church (otherwise "egg").

https://www.us-passport-service-guide.com/image-files/trans_siberian_railway_route.jpg

When first built, the Trans-Siberian route looked something like the above. The dividing line in Russia between Europe and Asia is famously the Ural Mountains, which run north-south between Perm and Yekaterinburg, so Perm is considered the easternmost city in Europe. In any case, much of the Trans-Sib west of Perm was preexisting, while the "Great Siberian Way" is really the tracks extended to the east. Since Saint Petersburg was the capital when construction started, it was considered the start of the Trans-Sib, but Moscow is also on the route, which within European Russia is considered a bit arbitrary. As this map shows, and as later ones will as well, the Trans-Sib is really a network of railway lines working in concert. However, do note that, with the route starting in Saint Petersburg on the Baltic, which is an arm of the Atlantic, the route is truly transcontinental, from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Check the Eurasia map to confirm this.

Note at Irkutsk the route that somewhat spectacularly runs to the south of Lake Baikal. But more importantly, note the two routes at the eastern end to Vladivostok, which seem to form a rectangle. Originally, the Russians secured Chinese permission to build right cross Manchuria via Harbin. This original west-east Trans-Manchurian line was completed and the first thru train from Moscow via Harbin reached Vladivostok in 1904. But after the Russo-Japanese war of 1904-1905, Russia feared Japan's possible takeover of Manchuria. Tho the original route just formed the bottom of a rectangle, Russia decided to build a longer route that just stayed within Russian territory—on the map, the Amur and Ussuri Lines--forming the three other sides of the rectangle, and obviously lengthening the route. This route was completed in 1916. Thus the Trans-Sib has two completion dates. 1904, for a route no longer used exactly as intended, and 1916 for the current all-Russian route.

 
 

That was the historical map. This next map shows the current cluster of routes (Map by Pechristener) that form the Trans-Sib. For closer study, here's the link the SAME map:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0a/Transsib_international.svg/2000px-Transsib_international.svg.png

The route (in red) is today considered to start in Moscow (click), tho connections to Saint Petersburg are always possible, since there are many lines in the Russian European heartland. The map shows several variations in European Russia over that dense network of rail routes. The blue and black routes are other variations, former or present. But the most interesting area is in the east. The purple route thru Manchuria is no longer used to reach Vladivostok. The term "Trans-Manchurian" is now redefined as trains to Beijing, but we'll get to that. Because of the newer 1916 route, when a train leaves Vladivostok now, it goes north quite a distance in order to later go east.

Now note the second route in green across Siberia to the north of the Trans-Sib, leaving at Tayshet to Sovyetskaya Gavan' on the Pacific coast, called the BAM / БАМ (Байкало-Амурская магистраль / Baikalo-Amurskaya magistral', or Baikal-Amur Mainline). Started in the 1930s, it was completed only in 1991, and has connections in the east to the Trans-Sib. The BAM was built as a strategic alternative route to the Trans-Siberian, especially along the vulnerable sections close to the border with China. However, this route is of little interest to most Western travelers. Nevertheless, the existence of the BAM shows a steady historic retreat from China over time. First the Trans-Siberian crossed China (Manchuria, via Harbin) to Vladivostok. Second, it was rerouted around China to avoid it. Third, the BAM was built further north still.

 
 
 Notes on two towns: In 1853, the discoverer of the bay now at the end of the BAM grandly named the settlement Гавань Императора Николая I / Gavan' Imperatora Nikolaya Pyervaya, the Harbor of Emperor Nicholas the First, curiously not even using "Tsar" but an even grander word. This was soon shortened to Императорская Гавань / Imperatorskaya Gavan' or Emperor Harbor; some might call it "Port Imperial". But, not surprisingly, in 1923, the town was renamed Советская Гавань / Sovyetskaya Gavan', or Soviet Harbor. Oddly, that name remains and has not been updated.

With all the fuss and bother building around Lake Baikal to the south, I find it charming that not only does the BAM touch the northern end of the lake, the town there is called Северобайка́льск / Syeverobaikalsk. Do not be daunted by names such as these. First, север /syever is "north". You'll have surely noted that many cities in Russia end in –SK; for instance, the major city of Irkutsk is named after the Irkut River, so the name means "Irkutville". Similarly, combine the elements, including a "connecting O" to get syever+o+baikal+ville and you'll see that Syeverobaikalsk means North Baikalville.
 
 

There's one more seemingly unimportant line in yellow rising perpendicularly to the north at Tynda from the main routes (also with a connection to the Trans-Sib), the Amur–Yakutsk Mainline (Амуро-Якутская магистраль, Amuro-Yakutskaya Magistral), abbreviated to AYaM (АЯM). It's a partially completed railway which is meant to link both mainlines with Yakutsk (see Eurasia map). Passenger services on the line now reach Nizhny Bestyakh, on the east bank of the Aldan River, across from Yakutsk. The line may eventually cross the river eastward via bridge or tunnel, or, that being too difficult or expensive, may terminate where it is facing the city. And so we have another lengthy Russian Railways domestic route east of Moscow besides the Trans-Siberian. Passenger service from Moscow on the AYaM reaches Nizhny Bestyakh 3-5 times a month, taking 5.8 days.

But there's more to this rail line than meets the eye. Plans have been set long term to extend the railway east from Yakutsk Oblast in red (Map by Peter Fitzgerald) to Magadan Oblast in purple. Further in the future, there is talk about extending it to Chukotka Oblast in light green, and possibly even building a tunnel, bridge, or bridge-tunnel across the Bering Strait to Alaska, linking Russia to the US, and thereby Europe via Russia to the US.

https://i.imgur.com/5Me3xb1.jpg

On this map from Europe, Tayshet is where the BAM leaves the Trans-Siberian and Tynda is where the AYaM leaves the BAM for Yakutsk. This future dreamy proposal shows the present lack of trackage and other infrastructure from Yakutsk to the Strait, and from the Strait via Fairbanks (note the Alaska Railroad) to Fort Nelson BC. Routes in North America show existing trackage, but not necessarily all routes are passenger lines. Now THIS would be some long-distance overnight trip!

https://i1.wp.com/www.melisaom.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/trans_siberian_map.jpg?fit=1800%2C550&ssl=1

 
 

But let's get down to the Trans-Sib proper, as shown here in red. In the west again, you see that variations are always possible, such as via Yaroslavl, or Kazan. But if you're picturing one single train going back and forth as we saw on many of the other routes we described, you'd be mistaken. Russian Railways has two different scheduled trains on the Trans-Siberian route between Moscow and Vladivostok taking from 6 to 6.9 days. The unnamed slower train leaves daily, while the express, the Rossiya, leaves every second day. Just picture how many train consists there are on the route at any one time. When one of the slower trains reaches Vladivostok, there must be about five others en route behind it at various stages of transit. Double that for the return trip. Then add all the Rossiyas running at once.

But that's domestic. Check the map for the two international extensions from the Trans-Sib, one Chinese and one Russian. In yellow is the weekly Trans-Mongolian train from Moscow, leaving the mainline at Ulan-Ude, and continuing via Ulaanbataar (formerly transliterated as Ulan Bator) to Beijing, using Chinese rolling stock and taking 5.3 days. It's the longest Chinese international passenger route referred to earlier.

The Russian train is the weekly Trans-Manchurian from Moscow leaving the main line at Chita and continuing via Harbin to Beijing, using Russian rolling stock, and taking about 6 days. This train is named the Восток / vos.TOK, "East". Tho it does NOT go to Vladivostok, it uses the same word, since that city's name means "Lord [of the] East". This Russian route is a very clever recycling of the original route of the Trans-Sib. Instead of cutting all the way across Manchuria via Harbin, at Harbin it turns south to Beijing. There is still a rail connection between Harbin and Vladivostok for local users. But no international train does that original route all the way, due to the obvious visa and gauge break problems of crossing the border twice. However, for rail sticklers with patience and the appropriate visas it is still possible to travel all the way along the original Manchurian route by changing trains, with difficulty, in Harbin.

Just for fun, note this: I have not been at this spot myself, but this is a view looking from China (Manchuria) westward across the border to Russia (Photo by jason_she). The Chinese border marker is a little stone monument, but if you have any doubts where Russia begins, the monster ROSSIYA sign will tell you. And this is a freight train crossing from Russia to China at that same point (Photo by Jack No1).

 
 

The Rossiya    My trip was on a cruise train, which was very advantageous over the regular train in that it kept stopping in cities en route for day tours. However, I did "visit" the Rossiya at it was departing. This is from 2005/8:

 
 
 My first night in Vladivostok I walked down to the recently-restored 1912 station in traditional Russian style to look around. The station is above the tracks, which are otherwise open to the sky. I saw a train that was more decorated than the regular commuter trains, and looking down, I could read Россия/Rossiya "Russia" on each coach. It was 20:00 (8 PM) and I checked the board in the station. The Rossiya was to leave at 20:11, so I went down to the platform and waited. The train was a bit scruffy, but seemed to have regular sleeping compartments and everyone seemed excited at the prospect of a long trip. As the train pulled out, the station loudspeakers played the Russian national anthem, and it just seemed [so] historically perfect. The conductors, mostly women, leaned out of their doorways and waved back to me. It was a nice introduction to the TSRR. I [also] spotted [similar] trains two other times along our route.
 
 

This YouTube video (0:40-1:56) shows a view first south, later north, from an overpass as train 001, the Rossiya, leaves the 1912 Vladivostok station heading north, later west, for Moscow. Note on the train the white, blue, and red colors (in that order) of the Триколор/Tricolor, the Russian flag, (Photo by Vexillus), dating originally from 1696 and readopted in 1993. However, as of 2017, the flag livery of the Rossiya has been gradually phased out in favor of the gray livery and corporate red logo of Russian Railways, just like other trains (Photo by Glucke).

 
 
 It's not often we get to see Cyrillic letters in an artistic, highly stylized form. The three words in the name of the company have the initials РЖД, in lower case ржд. They're r, zh, d, but in script, that boxy D, Д, appears instead like a Latin d. Now look carefully at the logo. The lower-case R (like Greek Rho, it looks like a p), is on the left. The d is on the right. And in the center—that is not an I—we have the six-pointed letter zh, ж, stylized between and overlapping the other two letters.
 
 

Also note on the video that all cars are marked with the name of the train, РОССИЯ (Rossiya=Russia), with one exception: at 1:05 you'll see the РЕСТОРАН, the REST(O)RAN(T), or dining car. The sound isn't great, but I think we might be hearing the national anthem being played. At 1:25, we see something I'd totally forgotten about, a historic black engine I'd checked out at the time.

 
 

North Korea    You'll sometimes hear Moscow-Vladivostok route of the Rossiya referred to as the longest train ride of them all. It isn't. Not exactly. We spoke earlier about North Korea having the longest route, and, as it turns out, that is technically so. How can that be? It's done of course with Kurswagen/thru coaches.

http://hansandcassady.org/Vladivostok-NandS-Korea-MAP.JPG

The map shows the strip of Russian territory east of Manchuria in China. As the Rossiya comes south, the Kurswagen are let off at Ussuriysk, an hour or so before Vladivostok to its southeast, while the Rossiya continues to Vladivostok. The Kurswagen are then brought on a branch line to the southwest to the North Korean border at Tumangan (not named on the map). Note that Chinese territory does not reach the sea at this point.

The Kurswagen service runs six times a month, in a rather complex and bizarre pattern, which might be attributable to politics. On the 1st and the 5th, then later, on the 15th and 21st, Russia sends TWO sleepers beyond Vladivostok to the border town of Tumangan, where passengers exit and change trains to a North Korean train to Pyongyang.
But on the 11th, in between the first and second pairs of dates, and then again on the 25th, after the later pair of dates, North Korea provides one single sleeper that, however, requires no change and continues to Pyongyang.
No matter which dates are involved, it takes seven nights from Moscow to Tumangan, arriving in the mid-morning. But this being North Korea (and there's also the gauge break!), even if you're in their thru coach, the delay in Tumangan is some seven hours (!) until late afternoon. It then takes one overnight and most of the next day to reach Pyongyang. (I'll pass.)

[Splitting hairs: since the single North Korean sleeper goes all the way, it has to be considered the longest route. The two Russian sleepers that end at the border would be the next longest route, still longer than just going to Vladivostok.]

 
 

Seat 61/Mark Smith    The best website that gives advice on rail travel is called The Man in Seat 61 at seat61.com. It's run by Mark Smith in the UK who had a UK rail background before starting to advise rail travelers about rail possibilities and availability around the world. He also advises on some ferry connections. He says: "I've travelled the world on trains & ships", and that's all I need to hear to know that he's a rail 'n' sail guy. He also laments "a travel industry obsessed with flights, flights, car hire and more flights". See his website for his bio and how he gets the name Seat 61.

I know I've referred to his site for advice over the years. As I ponder it, I suppose one time I used his online directions is when I got the courage from him to arrange and to take that Thai overnight train all on my own from Bangkok to Chiang Mai.

https://www.seat61.com/images/Silkroute-map.jpg

 
 

The Silk Route    We've talked in the past about Marco Polo traveling from Venice to China along the Silk Road thru Central Asia (2009/33). Mark Smith points out that (for the adventurous), there is also a Moscow-Beijing connection made called the Silk Route, which traverses Central Asia, as shown above in yellow. (Note that on all of Mark's maps, he starts out in London then suggests connections to the Continent. Also note the wild connection he has down to Singapore!)

He says that the Trans-Sib is easier, faster, and less complicated, but this Silk Route is now open to foreigners. The most direct route adds only one country in between, Kazakhstan. It takes more planning and organization, and involves at least three trains, in addition to getting to Moscow in the first place. It starts by taking one of Moscow's above-mentioned trains to Central Asia.

(1) Moscow to Astana taking three nights. (For additional sightseeing in Central Asia, there are also trains to Almaty [also in Kazakhstan], Bishkek [Kyrgistan], and Tashkent [Uzbekistan], with additional local trains to major sites in red).
(2) Astana (or Almaty) to Ürümqi in China, taking 2-3 nights.
(3) Finally, take one of the numerous trains we said earlier run in China out of Ürümqi, notably the one that passes the Tibet route and proceeds via Xi'an to Beijing, taking 1-2 nights.
However, I would say it takes someone quite a bit more adventurous than me to attempt this Silk Route.

https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-9fa147ffaafff8f11f4c42dbce6f835d-c

 
 

Understanding Siberia Geographically    The above map shows the population density of all of Russia. It's obvious that, just like in Canada, the further north you go the fewer people there are, even in European Russia. In Asia, it's noticeable that the population belt runs near the southern border, as it does in Canada, which is perfectly understandable. Yet one must notice how the route of the Trans-Sib was not only pre-ordained by the population belt, it since has fed additional population growth all the way to Vladivostok.

This map also shows latitude and longitude. Find 40°N, then 50°N, also 60°N. I made this statement in 2005/6: I’m going to describe the [Round the World] route as staying within the Forties & Fifties, referring to degrees of latitude north. New York, the starting and ending point, will actually be the point furthest south of the entire rail trip at 40N43°. Saint Petersburg will be the point furthest north, barely squeezing in to our parameters at 59N55°. Thus the trip was not at the Earth's "waist level" at the equator, but more at the "necklace level".

http://www.ezilon.com/maps/images/europe/political-map-of-Russia.gif

This political map shows the regions of Russia. Note the separation of the Urals between Perm and Yekaterinburg. I find that the definition of Siberia is gradually altering domestically as opposed to internationally. I believe that most of us outside Russia picture anything east of the Urals to be Siberia, and the route of the Trans-Sib would seem to support that, and that is traditionally true. However, Russians will point out that Vladivostok is now considered to be in the Russian Дальний Восток / Dal'niy Vostok, or Far East, as the map shows.

 
 
 
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