Long Distance Rail Travel

[rlarosa]

This thread made me realise/reminisce just how much train travel I've done. Thanks!

Over a one month period in 2010, the new bride and I took trains between Beijing and St Petersburg - technically following the Trans-Mongolian route. It was an awesome trip and relatively cheap, particularly as we took short o/n hops on "local" trains in order to visit some smaller cities/towns, as opposed to the "touristy" trains which don't stop at many places. Crossing from Mongolia into Russia (land border crossings are always fun, as someone pointed out) was particularly memorable as we shared a compartment with Mongolian clothes "smugglers" who put on 6 pairs of jeans, numerous shirts, skirts and jumpers and big winter coats and then tried to convince us to carry a few extra handbags stuffed with trinkets for them.

On the same trip we rode from Chengdu to Lhasa which really is one of the railway worlds greatest engineering feats.

My favourite train ride was between Karachi and Quetta in 2001. The path through the Bolan Pass was nothing short of incredible. Not overly comfortable but fascinating engineering. The ride to Lahore was less inspiring but still great travelling. If you can speak about cricket, and most Pakistanis will think it's odd that you can't if you're an Australian, all manner of doors will open. The same applies to India and Sri Lanka.

I'm way more a anorak than I thought. Flying Scotsman, Reunification Express, Eurostar to Paris and to Brussels, Bangkok to Hat Yai, Chang Mai, Vientiane, Shinkansen to Nagano, Kandy to Nuwara Eliya, Maglev, TGV, Xian to Beijing. I guess I enjoy the challenge of getting myself from A to B. Who doesn't love the Metro, the Subway, or the Tube?

Man in seat 61 is one of my favourite websites.

Hi Happy Dude - really interested to hear more about the Beijing to Lhasa rail line. Any photos you can share? I'm really interested in taking this trip. Did you suffer from altitude sickness at all?

RL

 

[tuapekastar]

I quite like train trips, though I haven't experienced that many.

Indian Pacific PER-ADL, followed by the disappointing Overland ADL-MEL
Rocky Mountaineer YVR-YYC

Both the above trips were made in the highest class possible, and are overpriced IMHO, though both were good trips, and I'm pleased I did them.

BCN-MAD, pre VFT days, about 7 hours
MEL-SYD, pre any speed whatsoever days, a nightmare, stopped somewhere out of SYD for couple of hours in the middle of nowhere, trip took 15 or 16 hours. I flew back.
Some small town to Bergen in Norway, pretty fine scenery.
Shinkansen Odawara to Kyoto to Hiroshima then back to Tokyo
Shinkansen Tokyo to Nagoya, then 'local' train Nagoya to Takayama up in the hills, and vv

A few short 'novelty' trips:
Flam Railway in Norway, big descent into a fjord in a relatively short distance
Driving Creek Railway at Coromandel in NZ, quite an engineering feat
Thomson River Railway at Walhalla in Victoria, nice bush scenery

I'd like to do the Rovos train in South Africa, and most of the other trips listed in this thread have appeal

 

[kremin]

Done a lot of the European routes people have mentioned & used to love flying QF into FRA to hop straight onto a train

My favourite trip is in south america. The Hiram Bingham from Cusco to Machu Picchu return. Rarely use the word fabulous but that's what it was !!

K

 

[erkpod]

I'm so glad I started this topic!

 

[SeatBackForward]

I'm so glad I started this topic!

Can we call ourselves Frequent Frailers?

 

[Sprucegoose]

Agree Seattle to Vancouver is magnifique.....but so is the Starlight Express LAX to SEA. I took the lay down cabin.
Amtrak need to up their food offerings would be my only comment there.

 

[erkpod]

Agree Seattle to Vancouver is magnifique.....but so is the Starlight Express LAX to SEA. I took the lay down cabin.
Amtrak need to up their food offerings would be my only comment there.

I think that depends on if the train has the dining car with full kitchen or the dining car without the full kitchen.

I was looking forward to having an Amtrak steak all day while going NYC - Chicago. But the dining car didn't have the full kitchen so no Amtrak steak for me.

 

[auhkff]

I try to travel by rail whenever it's convenient, although my list is a little short - it's about to get a little longer.

Conventional:

Brisbane - Sydney numerous times
Sydney - Brisbane numerous times
Brisbane - Toowoomba return
Brisbane - Mackay return
Sydney - Melbourne (sleeper cabin) [this was during the QF shutdown - two business travellers were under the impression they had the twinette to themselves (single occupancy) upon arguing with me and the sleeping car attendant they were accommodated in the 1st class coach with four seats each.]
Charleville - Brisbane (1st sleeper) [train was almost empty, I was assigned to car D, was moved to E, as D was empty apart from myself, this twinette car was only 1/3 full]

Medium Speed:
Brisbane - Rockhampton [Business]
Bundaberg - Brisbane [Business] The seat width alone is worth the price paid for business on the Tilt Train
Hong Kong 九龙站 - Guangzhou 广州南站 [Premium Class]

Soon I'll be visiting China, Jiangsu Province, and will use the D/G series high speed trains.

 

[auhkff]

...I've also a long term ambition to travel from Singapore to London by rail. At last estimation it would be approximately 30 days travelling, via Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, China, Russia, Belarus, Poland, Germany, Belgium and France - an epic voyage.

 

[sjd]

Great thread.

Long Distance:

• Verona to Barcelona (sleeper to Marseilles)
• Barcelona to Lyon (from Marseilles to Lyon on the old orange TGV)
• Lyon to Tours
• Paris to Amsterdam (sleeper)
• Amsterdam to Berlin (sleeper)
• Berlin to Prague
• Salzburg to Rome
• Sydney to Melbourne (the old sleeper service back in the early '90s)

Fast:

• Eurostar London to Paris
• Paris to Le Mans (TGV)
• Paris to Chartres (TGV)
• Marseilles to Lyon (TGV)

In three weeks I am doing Singapore to Penang (sleeper from KL to Butterworth) followed later in that trip by Hanoi to Da Nang (sleeper).

Most of the trips above were done in the mid '90s backpacking around Europe with a mate. Met loads of people on the trains and would often compare notes on were we'd been and the cities we were arriving into. One story, on the trip from Salzburg to Rome, we arrived in Venice from Salzburg to find notices up at the station that there was a strike and would be no trains for 2 days. We were flying out of Rome the next morning to London, so were worried about what that would mean for us. We asked at the station and were lucky enough to be directed to the last train to Rome before the strike that was just about to depart. The next day the only train running from Roma Termini was the airport train.

 

[Daver6]

Having been on the Shinkansen, ICE and TGV, my favourite was actually this short trip of maybe an hour up to Hakuba in Japan in terms of amazing scenery.

[video=youtube;ye7TVnkYxS0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ye7TVnkYxS0[/video]

 

[VPS]

Keep remembering others - AKL to Wellington and Greymouth to Christchurch plus of course Moscow to St Petersburg.
Many happy trips on UK trains on the old Britrail pass where you could spend all day everyday on the train

ADL - MEL many times

The old ADL to Mt Gambier sleeper -cost $1.00 more to have a sleeper (40 years ago!!)

 

[Foreigner]

ICE multiple times FRA to Munich. Did FRA to Koln with mum and hit a displayed 305 or there about. We also have some video from in the train drivers cabin. He sped up for us.

TGV FRA to Paris and also Paris to Bordeaux.

The Spanish high speed train Madrid to Barcelona.

Then long distance trips of note are Rome to Munich. Then the Orient Express Vienna to Venice.

Munich to Budapest was also interesting.

The sunlander in 1982 was also interesting. Stopping in the middle of nowhere for no apparent reason for 30 minutes.

DB's ICE trains are pretty good. I've done Frankfurt to Berlin vv, Frankfurt to Cologne and back numerous times. First only and with pre-booking you just need to make sure you're at the platform in good time and board the right car. Hoping to be back in Frankfurt soon and am considering trip to Munich, alternative to Berlin or Dresden.

 

[erkpod]

I'm thinking I should do a day trip on a QR Tilt Train ex Brisvegas on Saturday.

 

[drross]

EuroStar a couple of times, TGV and ICE too, Shinkansen a few times but the best......the overnight Italian 'fast train' Rome to Paris ..coffee delivered to your cabin about 2 hours out of Paris. Great fun even if abit slow by European standards

 

[erkpod]

I've got a QR Tilt Train trip booked for tomorrow. It seems like it is only possible to go as far as Cooroy from Roma St & then return on the same day. I'll be in Cooroy for 29 minutes. I'm going J both ways.

 

[amaroo]

As backpacker 13 years past I took the train from Edmonton, Toronto, Ottawa, Quebec, Halifax, Montreal, NYC, WashingtonDC then across to San Jose. Interesting who you meet, and things you see.

Thinking about doing Toronto-Montreal X-mas day......figure it would be a memorable way to spend 5hrs whilst everything else is shut!

Might even fit in a day (rail) trip Montreal-Quebec City.......have been before but thinking the kids will kick out of -30 degrees and a bit of ice breaking crossing the St Lawrence River.

 

[Happy Dude]

Hi Happy Dude - really interested to hear more about the Beijing to Lhasa rail line. Any photos you can share? I'm really interested in taking this trip. Did you suffer from altitude sickness at all?

RL

Hi RL, there's no way I could stomach the trip all the way from Beijing, so from chengdu was long enough for us. Even the burgeoning middle class Chinese are pretty grotty by our standards. For eg, within an hour of leaving chengdu, the floor was covered with food scraps (bones, nut shells etc) and even some spit. The vanity sinks were used to rinse food dishes and were clogged with instant noodle bits within a few hours. That said, they're a fairly friendly bunch and happily shared food and stories with us. I didn't have altitude sickness, or even notice a change, on the way up but did have a nasty episode of headaches, hallucinating, shallow breathing and sleeplessness which lasted all night at Everest base camp (which we drove to). I also felt low level discomfort when climbing stairs in Lhasa, which happens a lot at the potala palace. The train cabins are meant to be pressurized with oxygen on hand but I recall someone opening a window a some point. I'll have a look when i can but i don't think I have many photos of the train. I have plenty from the train though. There's heaps of great info on the net such as Seat 61.

 

[erkpod]

Just came back from my day trip on the QR Tilt Train. The train itself was nice & well above the standard I'd be able to ride on for the same sort of journey back home in Sydney. Mind you, I was sitting in business class both ways.

The staff were nice, too. It was the start of the trip & lunchtime on the way up. On the way back. it was the afternoon time towards the end of the trip. Being offered an OJ when I got on the train at Cooroy on the way back was welcome.

However, the train seemed to be a lot slower than I remember from last time with a lot of running under 100kph.

On the way back, we were put into a loop a couple of times to let an interurban & a loco hauled passenger train pass. Despite this, we were early into Roma St.

Good trip - would go longer next time.

Can't wait for some real high speed rail in Japan February next year!

 

[FlashKiwi]

What a great thread!

I have been a bit of a train spotter since my mis-spent youth in NZ. Much more flying these days but hope to introduce my 3.5 y/o twins to the pleasures of rail travel. Have started them on the Brisbane- Gold Coast train. My dream is to take the family on a round the world train journey.

NZ
Have ridden all the passenger lines since the 1980's. Now only 3 or 4 exists. As a Uni student a couple of us did jump a freight train from Christchurch to Kaikoura, and manage to get a lift on a track checker from Seddon back to Kaikoura. When I was a kid you could ask to ride in the cab, and also managed to get to ride on some freight only lines (Auckland-Whangarei and Te Awamuto - New Plymouth). Doubt that is possible these days :-( My favorite is the Tranz-Alpine Express in winter.

Australia

SYD-MEL and MEL-ADL (both second class seats) in late 80's. Would like to do a cross country or to Darwin but a bit to expensive for the family (when I last looked it was going to be close to $6k one way)

Europe

Done the usual European trains. Last year did London-Koln-Vienna - getting a bit old for the second class sleepers. Other various destinations around Europe nothing special. One of the better ones was the overnight Vienna - Venice (Brenner Express I think). Probably the most memorable (for the wrong reasons) was a trip from Austria to Greece in 1993. Got locked up on the Austrian/Slovenia border for the night, with the all the refugees heading north, because I didn't have a visa for Slovenia. After getting the visa got as far as Zagreb, when again was 'detained'. (Note to self - don't wear army surplus trousers when traveling in war zone). Made my way to Osijek on Serbian border, but of course closed. 6 weeks before had been attacked by Serbian troops. Got loaded into UN trucks and taken to Hungarian border, then train to Budapest, then to Belgrade. Little did I know that Macedonia had just become independent, so another expensive visa. Detained again at the Greek border, and Macedonian visa cancelled by Greek customs because they didn't like the name.

Africa

Eygpt - Cairo to Aswan sleeper
Sudan Wadi Halfa - Khartoum - very slow train and third class seats. Outside the heat of the day sat or slept on roof. Average speed was less than 20km with some bits less than walking pace. Sudanese were very hospitable and lived on grapefruit
Eritrea - tried to get train from Asmara to coast but kept breaking down
Kenya - Nairobi-Mombassa
Tanzania - TANZAR to Zambia - great Chinese built train
Zimbabwe - Harare - Bulawayo - Vic falls - steam train
South Africa - Jo'burg to East London and Cape Town to Jo'burg (not Blue train :-()

Middle East

Turkey - Istanbul - Ankara
Israel - Tel Aviv - Haifa (very interesting seeing the train track continue into Lebanon at Rosh HaNikra on the North Coast)
Iran - Tabriz - Tehran - Mashad and then Golgan (on Caspian Sea back to Tehran)

Indian Sub Continent

Pakistan - Quetta - Lahore - Peshawar
India - Chenni - Trichy- Ooty Hill Station (cool little train) - Goa- Mumbai

Asia

China - Urumqi - Golmud in west of China (then car to Lhasa)
Vietnam - train from near Sapa back to Hanoi
Thailand/Malaysia/Singapore - BKK SIN train cheap and fun adventure

Americas

Various Amtrack with the longest being SFO to DEN

And finally as a side note I love train travel but the Australian govt. must have rocks in there head if they think a fast train along the East Coast would be viable..................................