
The longest train ride in the world (2019) - admp
https://basementgeographer.com/the-longest-train-ride-in-the-world/
======
owenversteeg
I've ridden trains in all the Western European countries listed, and taken a
lot of the listed routes at least partially. If you actually want to do this,
you can make that confusing list much simpler: Lisbon-Hendaye with an
overnight sleeper, then TGV Hendaye-Paris (a beautiful route), then the
sleeper train Paris-Moscow, then Moscow-Beijing sleeper, Beijing-Hanoi
sleeper, Hanoi-Ho Chi Minh.

Also, you definitely don't want to get a Eurail pass for this trip. In general
a Eurail pass isn't a good deal at all, with a few narrow exceptions. The
specific country level passes, as well as buying discounted tickets, will
nearly always be cheaper. This case is even worse, because even with an
unlimited Eurail pass, you pay additional fees for almost every train on that
list - Thalys, high speed, sleeper...

~~~
usr1106
> Also, you definitely don't want to get a Eurail pass for this trip.

Eurail passes are sold only to persons with a residence outside of Europe. For
Europeans there are Interrail passes. I believe prices and conditions were
similar many years ago, but I'm not sure and certainly not nowadays after
Interrail has seen several changes.

For Interrail you almost never need the pass if you want to go from A to B and
can book somewhat in advance. The pass can be good if you have no fixed plans
and just like to travel a lot, deciding more or less spontaneously where you
go next. Although in some countries like France this doesn't work well anymore
because you need reservations and there are no (reasonably priced) seats for
pass holders during peak travel times.

I travelled like this between Scandinavia and Portugal just 2 weeks before
Covid-19 was a thing in Europe. Certainly off-season, so it was OK.

~~~
globular-toast
Also Interail is way cheaper if you are under 26. Don't think it's worth at
all if you aren't.

~~~
pjc50
Yes, I did it 20 years ago in the pre-smartphone era and it was fantastic. The
big advantage for that case was not having to plan, at all; you could simply
wake up and decide where you want to go that day.

~~~
arethuza
Amusingly when interrailing many years ago we managed to get on the wrong
train at Ljubljana - we intended to go to Vienna but ended up on the overnight
train to Belgrade.

The nice thing about an Interrail ticket being that even when you do make such
a mistake your ticket is generally still valid!

------
flyinghamster
A 2008 trip from Vienna to Pyongyang: [http://vienna-
pyongyang.blogspot.com/](http://vienna-pyongyang.blogspot.com/)

This featured, for part of the way, a ride in the North Korean sleeper car
from Moscow to Pyongyang, as far as I know still the world's longest single
continuous rail trip without changing trains.

Something like this could pretty well never be done again, though. The Khasan-
Tumangang border crossing is really only open to North Koreans and Russians,
and they managed to get in only on the technicality that Tumangang was listed
on their visas as a valid port of entry. They were lucky they didn't end up in
a North Korean jail - or a Russian one.

~~~
peterburkimsher
I did a similar journey in 2009, and bought my ticket from Helmut Uttenthaler
- the guy who wrote that blog!

My trip into North Korea got postponed until 2010, but the rest of the Trans-
Siberian (including checking out a purported North Korean labour camp in
Chegdomyn) continued as planned.

The route was basically: Geneva-Beijing-Xian-Beijing-Dandong-Beijing-What do I
do with my double-entry Chinese visa and a week-Hong Kong-fly to Taipei-fly to
Beijing-Harbin-Vladivostok-Khabarovsk-Chegdomyn-Khabarovsk-Irkutsk (first
CouchSurfing experience!)-Moscow-Ukraine-Slovakia-Austria-Switzerland-fly to
UK for university.

I liked Taiwan so much I went back the next summer for 2 months at an iPhone
app startup, and enjoyed that so much I went back again from 2014-2018 and
made many good memories (microSD, USB, DRAM factory).

About the long train journey though: the scenery is beautiful, and being
offline for a while is very refreshing "Sorry I didn't answer your email, I
was in Siberia". Worth doing every decade or so; it's about time I have
another holiday like that. Maybe further south along the ancient Silk Road
route.

~~~
gurkendoktor
That sounds like a fantastic trip!

> Irkutsk (first CouchSurfing experience!)

If you are going to do it again, would you still use CouchSurfing? We had a
great experience surfing on all of our stops from Warsaw to Vladivostok in
2013, but I'm not sure if that's still a thing, or if it is all Airbnb now. I
wonder if it still has the same vibe.

Asking because I'd also love to take the Transsiberian again. Vladivostok was
great, but I'd love to see Mongolia this time.

~~~
peterburkimsher
I stayed active on CouchSurfing from then on, and was also able to host in
Japan and Taiwan! It's a great community, with meetups as well if you're not
travelling but still want to hang out with interesting people.

In May 2020 though, CouchSurfing started charging subscription fees. The
community is outraged, and most people are moving to BeWelcome.org and
Trustroots. BeWelcome has some online meetups as well, if you feel like coming
and chatting.

So yes - I am still doing hospitality exchange, and would certainly try to do
so on a trip like this.

------
abraxas
There is something magical about train travel for me. I find boarding and
riding trains extremely soothing.

Flying has the exact opposite effect.

It's not entirely rational but that's how it is for me.

~~~
macintux
I'm not sure what part of that wouldn't be rational. Between the lack of TSA
security theater (although I did in fact encounter a TSA checkpoint boarding
Amtrak in Chicago about 7 years ago), the freedom to move around while riding,
the much more open seating, the scenic views even without a window seat...

Were it not for the slow speeds, inconvenient routes, and generally abysmal
state of train service in the U.S., I'd never fly again.

~~~
wenc
Well, I have to say, with TSA Precheck, security lines have tended to be less
of an issue in recent years. When I was still traveling, I would get through
security lines at O'Hare in under 10 minutes.

(that said, O'Hare ranks #1 in the country for fastest TSA lines, so there's
that)

But travel on high speed trains (in Europe and Asia) is definitely a much more
pleasant experience.

------
9nGQluzmnq3M
Once the Kunming-Singapore link opens, you'll be able to ride to rails to the
southernmost point in continental Asia:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kunming%E2%80%93Singapore_rail...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kunming%E2%80%93Singapore_railway)

Despite the name it's actually a series of different routes, and while all of
them still have gaps, the Boten-Vientiane link connecting China to Thailand
(and hence Singapore) via Laos is scheduled to open in late 2021:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vientiane%E2%80%93Boten_railwa...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vientiane%E2%80%93Boten_railway)

Although the corresponding line on the Chinese side also needs to open (ETA
2022):

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuxi%E2%80%93Mohan_railway](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuxi%E2%80%93Mohan_railway)

~~~
toomanybeersies
It's been a dream of mine to travel overland from Singapore to London. This
would make it a lot easier, but probably a lot less fun.

~~~
satori99
A cousin of mine has been doing this the other way around. She is riding a
bicycle home to Australia from London.

She made it across Europe and Russia, all the way to the Chinese border before
Covid-19 hit and the Chinese wouldn't permit her to enter, so she has backed
tracked to Tbilisi to wait it out before continuing.

~~~
oska
Is her name Lauren O’Bryan? Because your story reminded me of a similar story
in an ABC article [1] profiling ppl stuck overseas with the pandemic.

[1] [https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-07-23/coronavirus-
pandemic-...](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-07-23/coronavirus-pandemic-why-
so-many-australians-still-to-come-home/12464258)

~~~
satori99
Indeed

------
snicky
We took a part of this route (Warsaw to Hong Kong via Mongolia and China) with
some friends during summer vacations in 2006. We even "accidentally" landed in
Tibet for 2 weeks and visited the Everest Base Camp near Shigatse. The entire
trip that took more than 2 months cost 2-3k USD back then. I was quite amazed
by how different and cheap everything gets once you cross the border near
Brest. Now when I'm writing this with one hand and holding my sleeping son in
the other it feels like it was in a previous life entirely. Happy times. Too
bad Belarus didn't change too much since then from what we hear.

~~~
netsharc
> We even "accidentally" landed in Tibet for 2 weeks and visited the Everest
> Base Camp near Shigatse.

Presumably with an entry permit and guide? I visited this camp, the one next
to the Rongbuk Monastery, last year. It was quite a touristy spot. And the
toilet facilities were horrendeous. There was an another base camp closer to
the Everest, but only accessible if you have an "Everest permit". How was it
14 years ago?

~~~
snicky
We had a local driver and a permit we got from a travel agency in Lhasa if I
remember correctly. Unfortunately, I can't recall which base camp it was. The
toilets were indeed horrible, one of the worst I've seen in my life for sure.
There weren't that many tourists at that time. I remember a Chinese couple
that had to use oxygen due to altitude sickness and some very fit Russians.

------
robga
I went from London to Saigon by train, and then various overland options to
southern Thailand, back in 2007. It feels like yesterday.

From London it was 2 hours to Brussels, 3 hours to Cologne, 34 hours to
Moscow, 100 hours to Ulaanbataar, and 30 hours to Beijing. So that’s 170 hours
of train from London to Beijing. From there, I criss crossed China for a month
before travelling the length of Vietnam, then through Cambodia to Thailand,
ending 90 days of overland travel. Great times.

~~~
iso1210
> back in 2007. It feels like yesterday

As you get older, memories of time compress dramatically. What used to be
measured as "oh wow that's a year away" is now measured in decades. It's
depressing, and inevitably leads to a mid-life crisis.

~~~
alltakendamned
while at the same time, I can't remember what I had for lunch the day before
yesterday...

------
oefrha
(2011) although the byline says 2019 (probably a reposting date). There's a
2013 snapshot on Wayback Machine dating the article to November 28, 2011, plus
the references are from 2011:
[http://web.archive.org/web/20130807195501/https://basementge...](http://web.archive.org/web/20130807195501/https://basementgeographer.com/the-
longest-train-ride-in-the-world/)

------
9nGQluzmnq3M
Here's a story of travelling a similar route, but finishing off by taking the
highest train ride in the world to Tibet instead:

[https://driftingclouds.net/2018/07/01/from-siberia-to-
tibet-...](https://driftingclouds.net/2018/07/01/from-siberia-to-tibet-
preamble-paperwork/)

------
lmm
> From Poland, travellers have two options: travel through Belarus, which
> requires a transit visa one must apply for in person that takes days to
> process; or take the slightly longer but more sensible option, which is to
> continue north through the Baltic states and then continue east to Russia,
> which would add a day and some euro to your bill but would remove some of
> the hassle.

Actually the sensible option is to turn _south_ and go through Ukraine - the
overnight train to Kiev is pretty pleasant, and from there you have plenty of
options to Moscow.

~~~
morceauxdebois
Are the routes through Donetsk and Luhansk safe though?

~~~
lmm
Donetsk is 600km away in the wrong direction. The Kiev-Moscow trains cross the
border at Seredyna-Buda, which is open and safe. Ukraine has said that it will
stop those trains, but it's also said that it will build a border wall;
whether anything will actually come of it I rather doubt.

------
bogomipz
For those who enjoy traveling by rail. "The Man in Seat 61" is a great
resource:

[https://www.seat61.com/](https://www.seat61.com/)

------
lqet
Up until 2 or 3 years ago, you could directly travel by night train from my
(relatively minor) home town Freiburg to Moscow. There are direct trains from
Paris to Freiburg or Frankfurt (where the night train also stopped), so this
could've saved the layover in Warsaw.

[https://www.bahnbilder.de/1200/wlbm-172-am-ende-
eines-777062...](https://www.bahnbilder.de/1200/wlbm-172-am-ende-
eines-777062.jpg)

Note that there are already regular freight train connections from Duisburg,
Germany to China:

[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8f/Trans-
Eu...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8f/Trans-Eurasia-
Express.png)

~~~
martopix
I believe the longest single train trip in Europe is still Nice-Moscow via
Genoa, Milan, Austria, Poland, etc.

------
Gys
Posted in 2019 but all references are from 2010-2011. I assume many things
have changed by now.

Anyways, even at that time, why not start at Lisbon instead of starting in
Porto to go to Coimbra and add even more time and distance to the trip.

~~~
rhn_mk1
Certainly. The trail on the map between Warsaw and Moscow doesn't follow the
actual route. That one enters Belarus more to the South.

Trains in the Baltic states are really irregular, so it might be faster to
wait for the visa. The train between Poland and Lithuania only works on summer
weekends nowadays, the train between Lithuania and Estonia goes only every 4
days due to some complication in Latvia, if it even reaches Estonia in an
unbroken connection at all. Either way it's so impractical that you might as
well forget that it even exists (as my fragmentary memory proves).

~~~
jaakl
Baltic current route could be: Sat morning (weekend-only) Vilnius to
Daugavpils local, to Riga local, to Valga local. Sunday morning to Tartu one
modern train and then express to Tallinn. Overnight to Petersburg and finally
supermodern express to Moscow by Monday noon or so.

~~~
rhn_mk1
To connect that to Warsaw: Friday afternoon-ish to Białystok, evening to
Kaunas, then one more regular connection to Vilnius.

------
guruparan18
There used to be equally enjoyable and intriguing, the world's longest bus
trip, from London (UK) to Calcutta (India) in mid 1970s. It appears there was
quite a bit of fanfare for it. People used to take the bus and then ship to
Australia then on.

[https://curlytales.com/this-was-the-worlds-longest-bus-
route...](https://curlytales.com/this-was-the-worlds-longest-bus-route-from-
kolkata-to-london/)

------
gorbypark
I've always had a dream of travelling around the world via the "surface".
Probably home to NYC via train ->Southhampton, UK via a swanky cruise ship ->
train from there to Beijing or Shanghai -> some sort of ferry/boat to Japan ->
Cruise (or freighter 'direct' to the West Coast) to Hawaii -> West Coast
US/Can -> train back home. I should really do it, one day.

~~~
jack2222
You should check out the travel documentary 'around the world in 80 days' by
Michael Palin.

------
axus
Reminds me of a game I spent my "Google Rewards" on recently:
[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.inkle.eigh...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.inkle.eightydays)

------
tromp
> Once in France, it’s a transfer onto the TGV (but not the high-speed trains,
> which won’t ply this particular route until 2017)

At first I thought, oh, this is an old article from before 2017. But scrolling
back to the top, I see it's from June 2019, so it's puzzling why they would
write that.

------
growlist
Almost $400 for Koln to Warsaw?! A quick search shows that's out by an order
of magnitude compared to the cheapest tickets on offer. I did this journey in
winter once - something very atmospheric about trundling through central
Europe in the snow.

------
tzot
> Once in France, it’s a transfer onto the TGV (but not the high-speed trains

It's a little funny to say you transfer onto the Trains-à-Grande-Vitesse
(high-speed trains) but not onto the high-speed trains :)

------
eequah9L

        > Using the shortest timetable, the distance from the 
        > coastal centre of Porto to the Polish capital of Warsaw 
        > can be covered in 40 hours and 33 minutes (including time 
        > zone changes) with just four transfers.
    

Wait, what? How are timezones relevant? If I travel one hour across the date
line, does it mean the trip took me minus 23 hours? Not that I don't care what
time it is when I get off the train, but that has no bearing on the time that
the distance can be covered in.

~~~
gregoriol
The author probably wanted to say that by looking at timetables, times being
indicated in the timezone of the station, if you cross a timezone you have to
add/remove hours to get the real duration of the trip.

------
LoSboccacc
> longest single uninterrupted train journey

> with just four transfers

I don't understand the rules set forth from the article for its calculation

~~~
0-_-0
I think it means "train ride between the 2 furthest possible points", so using
train only.

------
abeppu
The table at the end including the $2.27 to get between stations within Paris
is cute.

------
interactivecode
Does anyone know the best directish train route from Amsterdam to Athens?

~~~
eCa
Currently, Amsterdam-Frankfurt-Vienna-Zagreb-Belgrade-Skopje-Thessaloniki-
Athens. Or Köln-Munich instead of Frankfurt-Vienna. Also, south of Belgrade I
think the schedule is a bit sketchy. Source, as always,
[https://seat61.com](https://seat61.com)

~~~
eythian
In December an Amsterdam-Vienna night train service will start.

------
hlfy_hn
"The longest train ride in the world"

Longest bullshit post. With changing trains, it does not mean much. BTW, the
China - Thailand Railway opens soon. Then you can go to Singapore from Lisbon.
Or from Marrakesh to Beijing if you take the ferry to Spain.

"All prices were hastily sourced from various travel sites."

TLDR: No idea what I am writing about, but I collected some stuff from the
internet.

For some real world experience:
[https://www.seat61.com](https://www.seat61.com)

~~~
Gys
> the China - Thailand Railway opens soon

Very interested! Do you have any reference that I keep an eye on?

------
sharpercoder
So where can I buy a ticket to ride?

~~~
lqet
For the Porto -> Moscow leg you should be able to get a SCIC (Special
Conditions of International Carriage) ticket in any European train ticket
office.

The complete list of participating countries is here:

[https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gemeinsamer_Internationaler_Ta...](https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gemeinsamer_Internationaler_Tarif_f%C3%BCr_die_Bef%C3%B6rderung_von_Personen#Beteiligte_Bahnen)

However, an Eurail pass will most likely be cheaper and you will enjoy greater
freedom in chosing your connections:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurail](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurail)

I suspect the Moscow -> Saigon leg to be a bit more complicated, but there are
travel agencies specialized in offering exotic train rides.

~~~
runarberg
I think the Trans-Siberian rail still runs from Moscow to Beijing (with a link
to the Trans-Mongolian rail at Ulan Ude or the Trans-Manchurian at Chita).

From Beijing it shouldn’t be too difficult to find a single link to Hanoi. And
from Hanoi there is a single sleeper that runs to Ho Chi Minh (I’ve taken this
one in the other direction back in 2008).

So if I’m not mistaken (or out of date) Moscow to Ho Chi Minh should be at
most 3 connections (Ulan Ude/Chita, Beijing, and Hanoi).

------
mmhsieh
for those interested in very long train rides, don't miss Bong Joon Ho's
"Snowpiercer."

~~~
mumblerino
I found the movie so far-fetched it was hard to enjoy it. Loved Parasite
though (same director)

