Distance covered: 12,490 km, distance to go: 0 km – the finish! Shanghai Longyang Road Station to Pudong International Airport 3 C, sunny, GMT +8. Distance: 30 km, journey time 7 minutes, max speed 431km/h (268 mph) Well here we go for the last train of this trip – but one seemingly without rails! It’s a 20 minute taxi ride from the Bund to Longyang Road, where the downtown Maglev station is to be found. A short hike up an escalator, then you buy a ticket (mine was a first class or “VIP” ticket, one way, discounted if you show […]
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Distance covered so far: 12,430 km, distance to go: 30 km, 3C, GMT +8. G15 High Speed Train, Beijing South – Shanghai Hongqiao Sad to be leaving the Kerry, but up early for my journey to Shanghai. In the Shangri-La way, everything was a whir of efficiency at check out and I was soon deposited in a wifi enabled car and accompanied by Chris, the hotel concierge. I discovered on the short journey to the station that this blog is actually blocked in China, but the hotel route their internet via Hong Kong, so as a result I have had […]
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Distance so far: 9142 km, – 30 C (estimate), clear skies I am currently sat at the Russian border waiting for my passport to be returned before we trundle over into Mongolia. A visa point in passing – Russian immigration don’t seem at all fussed about deregistering our visas. After going to the trouble of registering it in Moscow in the first place, I’m disappointed they don’t seemingly want (or need) to deregister it. Perhaps the exit procedure does this automatically in the system these days? It’s too complicated a question to try and ask, so I’m just going to […]
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Distance so far: 8889 km, -25 C, sunny, GMT +8 The train has just left Ulan-Ude (we are still on time!) after a 40 minute stop, our longest so far. Overnight we passed through Irkutsk and have covered another 1200 km since this time yesterday. We seem to have a fresh engine each day – still on overhead electric at the moment, but changing to diesel tomorrow. We came in alongside the Russian Trans-Siberian “Rossiya” train which I think goes on to Vladivostok – but we soon part company and branch off this line soon to start heading South, bound […]
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Distance so far: 6582 km, -25 C, pitch darkness, stars. Just a few night time updates.. I had to strip right off this afternoon as the temperature on board my carriage was about 30 C. I was impressed that my carriage attendant understood how I felt and said he could turn down the heat, but I have only just worked out how. He has opened the roof panel above the toilet at the end of the carriage, stuffed a blanket inside and jammed the door open with the giant pair of chop sticks (actually used to unblock the toilet)..Somehow this […]
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Distance so far: 4207km, -21 C, freezing fog. Morning! I woke at dawn today (that’s about 09.30 Moscow time) – just in time to try getting off the train for the first time at the stop in Kirov. The drill is that the carriage attendant gets kitted up, enters the outer compartment of the carriage (unheated) and opens the door. He then gets down, scrapes off the ice, sweeps away the snow, and wipes the handles so you can get off safely. All you need to do is agree how long the stop is for – but I’m not trusting […]
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Today I visited Monino for a pre arranged trip to what was part of the Gagarin Air Force base, but it has actually recently been placed into non military hands. It’s about 40km to the North East of Moscow – it took me about an hour and a half to get out there by car. It’s actually hidden on the outskirts of a suburb, and there are few signs. I had high hopes for this trip, and they were met in every respect – it is a truly amazing place to visit if you have a passing interest in Cold […]
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D 405 “Vltava” Part 1 Warsaw – Terespol Distance covered so far – 1900 km, GMT +1, -5 C, cloudy. Well that was quite interesting. The Amsterdam train was two hours late into Warsaw but they had held the Moscow train for our arrival. I didn’t see them switch any carriages but they might have done – Amsterdam to Minsk & Basel to Moscow carriages both travel this route. My carriage attendant, who was doing a first class job with little English, gave me a voucher – apparently PKP actually financially compensate passengers when they are this late. It’ll never […]
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