Sowrey.org

The Society of International Railway Travelers just released their list of the Top 25 Trains in the world.
I really gotta remember to join this group.

As we’ve moved along over this journey, I’ve taken pictures of things for posting to the blog. Some of them didn’t make it, for one reason or another. But hating to waste good pictures, I thought I’d throw them into a blog posting for all to experience.

We knew this was going to be rough. We knew this was going to be long. It wasn’t as bad as we thought it might be, but it was still long.
We took Train 364 (formerly 264) from Ulan Ude to Ulaan Baatar. (The train itself runs Irkutsk to UB.) As we would find out, the [...]

Okay, quick update…So Continuously Welded Rail (CWR) doesn’t exist coast-to-coast. After we left Ekaterinburg, we went to jointed rail. CWR exists in patches along the line, but the most of it is the ol’ clickety-clack variety.
Lots more freight trains, too.
Russian engines are huge, but have the wimpiest horns you ever heard! Sounds like those little [...]

Well, we’ve reached the end of our time here in Russia. Tomorrow morning, early, we’re off to Mongolia. And a 10+ hour border-crossing, so we’re told. It’s simultaneously a horror story and a quest of patience, so it seems.
After we arrived last night, literally 10 minutes into being in our new hotel room, the phone [...]

We’re in Ulan Ude now, having arrived a bit later last night than scheduled. (Mind you, it took a half hour to walk from the train to the hotel.)
It’s a nice little city of about a half million … and no birch trees!!! Finally.
We’ll be here until early tomorrow morning, when we leave for Mongolia. [...]

The cold seems to be slowly moving away. It hit me a little harder than it did Amy, so while she dealt mostly with the sniffles, I’ve been dealt the ol’ phlegm-attack. Mostly throat clearing, so it ain’t all nasty.
Until today, I had yet to cash any of my traveller’s cheques. Useful things these are [...]