The Trans-Siberian Railway: The Russian Route East

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[bosburyhillrail]

Enjoyed the video. In 1986 I travelled from Hong Kong to London by train, all the way, it was a 21 day tour. It was an organised tour group of 8 people + guide. We did stay in motels at various places, like Beijing, Ulaanbaatar, Irkutsk & Moscow. We also did day trip to various sights like the Great Wall & Lake Balkal. This was when the USSR was still in in charge, and gave us many stories of their determination to control everything. The crossing from East Belin to West Berlin was very memorable.

[DannStephen]

I did this trip 4 years ago, amazing. It was late winter, March, and most of the route was snow covered. Vladivostok is a great city well worth a visit. In fact i went all the way from my local station in Mid Kent, UK via London and Paris to Moscow and then on to Vladivostok by 5 different trains. The Trans Siberian is something everyone should try at least once in their life.

[lesleyvids]

I think you could go London-Wladivostok fairly easily:
London-Paris Eurostar
Paris-Moscow Nighttrain
Moscow-Wladivostok Trans-Siberian

Only two changes to cross nearly all of Eurasia, thats rather impressive.

[robertcrane]

In 1903, International Harvestor sent my father, who founded the Agricultural Engineering program at U of Illinois a few years earlier, to travel the Trans Siberian Railway to its termination point at that time, Irkutsk on Lake Baikal. His job was to inform International Harvestor what agricultural machinery was in use and what opportunities for IH equipment might be. Czar Nicolas was the ruler and military a constant presence. Steam engines powered the trains same as in U.S. His trip consumed most of a summer before he returned to the University. Dad was born in 1875, was 65 when I was born, died in 1960 when I was 20.

[benangel]

1. My recommendation: Bring entertainment (i.e., a long book), and don't be scared to take it in mid-winter... (the route is worlds more dramatic, and considerably less crowded with tourists).
2. There is a superstition that you will add a year to your life if you wash your feet in the waters of Lake Baikal - Listvyanka is a wonderful place to do this.
3. The private train is much like your description of the early first class, and some travel agencies (like Travel All Russia) offer the option, but it is crazy expensive (I seem to recall something like $24K for a week's journey).
4. The alternative train route through Central Asia has been operating for over a decade already, but I'd imagine that you'd be heavily screened before being allowed to take it, as it passes through the middle of the police activities against Uighur "separatists" in Xinjiang.
5. Extensions also exist going up to the town just across the Lena River from Yakutsk, and then there is the Baikal Amur Magistral, or BAM (a line worthy of its own episode). Supposedly travel along these is possible to book, but it requires a bit more logistical planning than just taking the Rossiya or other Trans-Siberian route.
6. Gauge changing seen at the border of the Russian system and the Chinese can also be seen closer to Europe. When you take a train from Prague to Kyiv, for instance, you will go through a gauge changing facility at the Ukrainian border. Usually you hit it in the middle of the night. They disengage the wheel casings, jack the whole train up, replace the casings with the new gauge, and then reattach the casings. It's interesting to watch if you can stay up for it.
7. Another Megaproject episode I'd agitate for is the idea of putting a tunnel under the Bering Strait... efforts toward building this are dormant right now, but plans by some ambitious someone have caught the attention of media and dreamers from time to time since William Gilpin first proposed it in the late 19th century. (Completion of an extension of the line between Alaska and the Canadian rail system will likely spur further effort toward this ultimate railroad megaproject, one that would dwarf anything like a London to Tokyo line... I mean, imagine a London to New York or Tokyo to Los Angeles bullet train journey...)

Make the effort to take the trip, Simon. It's worth it...

[jjlegend]

Can I say, ever since you started "Business Blaze", your mood has become more playful on your other channels and I love it. 👍

[idiotengineer]

My wife and I were planning on going from Moscow to Vladivostok and then ferry to either Japan or South Korea for our 20th anniversary. From Atlanta, GA, a trip literally around the world! But then 2020 happened.

[MissElemmire]

You shouldn't give up on that dream so soon, Simon. It had been a lifelong dream of my parents (particularly my mother) to take that trip, and they had all but given up on it, until we managed to make it their thirty-years anniversary gift. I can count on one hand the number of times I saw my mother cry, and I am quite happy to say that, on this occasion, those were tears of joy.

They took almost four weeks to go from Vladivostok to Moscow, in January, and they came back home with the burning desire to go back and do it again. I'm counting it as a smashing success ! :-)

The photos, videos, and various stories they brought back are absolutely amazing, and maybe, one day, I will follow in their footsteps...

[julianperkins]

I live in Tyumen, a Siberian city on the Trans Siberian - whenever I'm crossing one of the railway bridges I'm always amazed by how much freight this line carries. And |I've done "platzcart" - 3rd class - on a couple of sections of the line - a truly sociable experience!

[toinebles]

We took the Trans Mongolian from Moscow all the way to Beijing, an epic journey. We got of a number of times, visited Lake Baikal and did a week in the Goby desert, to top it off we did a bit of extra highspeed train in China. I don't think we'll ever top this adventure. Nice video to give more background!

[BillCameronWC]

I took much of this line, but in the opposite direction, in the early-mid 1980s, travelling from Beijing to Moscow on the “International Train” & joining the classic Trans-Siberian line at Ulan Ude. I had arrived in Beijing from Hong Kong (where I lived at the time) by air, the Beijing-Moscow journey took 5 1/2 days. A few days after arriving in Moscow I left again by train for London, crossing the Channel from Hook of Holland to Harwich and on to London by train, the whole Moscow/London trip took just over two days. One amazing experience was the change from Chinese gauge to Soviet gauge with the carriages being hoisted off the track so the Russian bogeys would be fitted, the whole process took about 1 1/2 hours for the lengthy multi-carriage train. The same process in reverse happened when we crossed from the USSR to Poland on the Moscow-London sector. A very interesting journey. Apart from that the longest rail journey I ever took was from Athens to Istanbul, that took about 36 hours, although for eight hours of that we stopped in no-man’s land on the Greek/Turkish border with one single carriage being shunted there by a Greek locomotive and the following morning we were pulled into Turkey by a Turkish locomotive and on to Istanbul.

[DreadMerlot]

I'm an American, but I've done it from Moscow to Novosibirsk, three times, and back. Never made it to the end of the line, but since my first trip was in 92, I've almost been knifed, I once bought the entire restaurant car for twenty bucks, and was once escorted aboard by a troop of Cossacks, in large hats, and then made to chug moonshine while biting it back with a dill pickle..

[FNLN]

I took the train crossing from Mongolia into China in 2010. They lift you in the air inside the carriage as they change the wheels. Then off to the official border you go, with several hundred Chinese soldiers saluting the train whilst a loudspeaker says something in Chinese followed by “Welcome to China. How are you?” over and over again before they board the train and joylessly check your temperature and question you on whether you intend to sell goods inside the country.
Surreal. Unforgettable.

[GenialHarryGrout]

According to "The Man in Seat 61" London to Vladivostok can be done by 3 trains. London to Paris via Eurostar, then Paris to Moscow and finally Moscow to Vladivostok. Journey takes about 10 days and cost varies depending on class of travel and cabin sleeping arrangements,

[CK]

The Trans Siberian is on my bucket list which is something i'm firmly committed to fulfiling & this whole travel ban thing is rudely getting in the way of!( due to medical issues I only have about 6-8 years max left as my immune system failed a couple years back and my body is now slowly shutting down).

It's not cheap to do but i'm determined to cross it off my list and your video was great.

Also used your link to sign up on SkillShare so thanks for that as well. Keep up the great work.

[donaldfedosiuk]

I'm hardly an expert on this subject, but from what I've seen and read, you can (or at least could until 2020) take the Chunnel train from London to Paris and from there use a twice-weekly, three-day service run by a private Russian company to Moscow, via Berlin and Warsaw. From Moscow, of course, it's a mere seven days to the Lord of the East. Great video, not incidentally. Loved it!

[archstanton]

Some friends of mine went around the world in 80 days purely by train and plane.

Seattle train to Vancouver to Nova Scotia by train and flew to New York.

Flight to Lisbon, trains to Madrid, Paris, Berlin and to St Petersburg. Train to Moscow and then Trans-Siberean to Vladivostock.

Flight to Seoul and flight to West coast of Australia. Train across whole country to Sydney.

Flight to LA and train to Seattle.

[WildStar]

I had friends that took the Moscow-Beijing route in the early 1980s. Very frequently a conductor would come tell all the foreign passengers on their train, "Dear, friends! You must change your clocks now! Russia is biggest country in world - many time zones!" They were several hours ahead of *actual* local time when they got to the Chinese border. :-) Also, the trucks on the train-cars had to be changed at the Chinese border because the rail gauge was different in China. :-) Ha! You covered that! 16:44

[zerockraut]

"fancy train" is called the "golden eagle" (Золотой Орёл). It's very expensive, stylized to royal time train. The journey from Moscow to Vladivostok will take 14 days on it, mainly due to long stops for excursions.

[ignitionfrn]

1:50 - Chapter 1 - The lines
2:45 - Chapter 2 - The routes
4:30 - Chapter 3 - History
6:20 - Chapter 4 - Construction
10:45 - Mid roll ads
12:20 - Chapter 5 - Effects
14:20 - Chapter 6 - Trains
17:05 - Chapter 7 - War
20:20 - Chapter 8 - Today
21:30 - Chapter 9 - A mammoth extension to a mammoth line