International Railroad Discussion > Beijing to Moscow via Manchuria in July 2014

Train 19,The Vostok departs Beijing weekly for Moscow. Departures are from Beijing's Main Station every Saturday night and requires just over 6 days to cover 8,986km (5,623 miles). Happily the equipment is Russian rather than Chinese except for the dining car which is Chinese in China and Russia in Russia. There is a gauge change at the border on the Russian side. All in all it's an interesting ride but I think the Trans-Mongolian route is more interesting.

A couple high speed train sets

The Chinese dining car. It mostly functioned as a place for it's crew to smoke and for the lone waitress to harass diners. She would demand payment for your meal even after you payed, and you pay when ordering on Chinese trains. The car crew smoked continuously including the cook who smoked in the galley. Ahh China. At the border a Russian diner was switched into the train and it was an altogether different experience.

The fine riding, comfortable, Russian built sleepers. All cars had AC with electrical power supplied by a spicer driven generator just like the type so common in the pre-Amtrak days in the US.

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The schedule, 6 days of travel. The train operates on Moscow time as do all trains in Russia which can be as much as a 6 hour difference. Station dwell times are included.

Station stop in Harbin.

A GE diesel. There were a large number of this type, all on coal trains.

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Getting closer to Russia, this station has a very Russian look right down to the color.

At the Russian border station Zabaikal'sk. The Chinese diesel that brought the train across the border. This is where the gauge change took place. All passengers detrain and go through customs while the trains trucks are switched. The whole process takes about three hours. After experiencing the very lengthy border formalities between Russia and Mongolia ( over 5 hours), this was a surprise. Russian Customs were done with passport checks in about an hour.I would experience this again in a few weeks at the Russian Ukrainian border on a train from Moscow to Kiev. That took less than 45 minutes for a much larger train.

A RZD switcher with additional cars to be added to train 19.

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Additional cars for train 19.

Deep in the Russian Far East. A Russian Cowboy.

You don't see that every day.

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The 2TE10M that took the train to Ulan-Ude where electric power took over.

Station stop at Ulan-Ude in Siberia. A very nice city and well worth a visit.

At Petrovskii Zavod, Lenin still greats every train. He seems to be quite enjoying himself.

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Very nice! I see that the Russian-Ukrainian border crossing is faster than US-Canada often is.

Love these posts.

Great post!

Wow, great stuff!

Steve Mitchell
http://www.yardgoatimages.com

Great show !

Yukon Yeti

Thanks everyone, appreciate the remarks. I'll try and get the rest of the trip up tonight.

Any photos of the car interiors?

Mike Massee
Tehachapi, CA
Photography, Railroading and more..

Ptolemy Wrote:
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> Very nice! I see that the Russian-Ukrainian
> border crossing is faster than US-Canada often is.


Even with the two countries in an undeclared state of war (which still sounds absurd, no matter how long it exists).

P.S. That MiG-23 hulk is definitely a sight.....

What are the 4 tracks for? Russia is 5 foot gauge right? China is what?

Great photos

CPRR Wrote:
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> What are the 4 tracks for? Russia is 5 foot gauge
> right? China is what?
>
> Great photos


Standard gauge

The pic of the Chinese diesel shows it with the Chinese-standard Janney (AAR Type E) couplers, while the Russian diesel has the Russian-standard SA-3 (Willison-type) couplers. They must use some kind of adapter between the Chinese locomotive and the Russian cars, also between the Chinese diner and Russian sleepers; did you happen to notice?

Your photos and story are terrific -- keep 'em coming, please!

Thanks, Roger Lewis (airbrakegeezer)

airbrakegeezer Wrote:
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> The pic of the Chinese diesel shows it with the
> Chinese-standard Janney (AAR Type E) couplers,
> while the Russian diesel has the Russian-standard
> SA-3 (Willison-type) couplers. They must use some
> kind of adapter between the Chinese locomotive and
> the Russian cars, also between the Chinese diner
> and Russian sleepers; did you happen to notice?
>


Not sure about the trains to China, but in case of Europe, the standard practice, with both RIC and regular-outline cars, was to keep the SA-3 between cars to the same destination, and replace it with the European screw coupler at the "outer" ends of the set. This was done at the same time as the bogie change.

This flexibility was possible due to all passenger cars on the ex-USSR network having buffers (primarily for reasons of stability and passenger comfort).

I'm sure the same method is used in this case as well.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/24/14 07:36 by chs7-321.

I think chs7-321 is right, the coupler is probably replaced at the same time the trucks are changed. Now I wish I had checked that out.I'll try and keep an eye out for how this is handled when I ride the Prietenia between Kishinev and Bucharest in November. I was impressed how fast the process was given that all the Russian cars had spicer drive generators rather than the usual generator connected to by belts and mounted on one of the trucks.

Looking at the Chinese dining car picture again, it looks as though it might be coupled between the locomotive and the Russian cars; this of course would make operational sense, as this dining car could have an SA-3 coupler at one end and a Janney at the other, requiring only that the dining car be turned at each end of its run; the only problem being that access to the diner is not as easy as if it were in the middle of the train. Of course, given your comments on the quality of service in the diner, it may be that not too many passengers bother to make their way to the Chinese diner anyway!

Many thanks for your comments, Chs7-321 and Getting Short; your posts are two reasons that the International Board is my favorite TO site!

Roger Lewis (airbrakegeezer)

airbrakegeezer Wrote:
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> Looking at the Chinese dining car picture again,
> it looks as though it might be coupled between the
> locomotive and the Russian cars; this of course
> would make operational sense, as this dining car
> could have an SA-3 coupler at one end and a Janney
> at the other, requiring only that the dining car
> be turned at each end of its run; the only problem
> being that access to the diner is not as easy as
> if it were in the middle of the train. Of course,
> given your comments on the quality of service in
> the diner, it may be that not too many passengers
> bother to make their way to the Chinese diner
> anyway!
>
> Many thanks for your comments, Chs7-321 and
> Getting Short; your posts are two reasons that the
> International Board is my favorite TO site!
>
> Roger Lewis (airbrakegeezer)

First of all thanks. The Chinese restaurant car was cut into the middle of the cars that continued through to Moscow, it was right behind the single 1st class car I was in. There was the restaurant car and a Chinese hard class sleeper in the middle of the RZD cars. Probably they are in captive service on this route or the Trans-Mongolian trains that use Mongolian rolling stock that are all Russian standard. Last year when I used the Ulaanbaatar to Beijing train a similar Chinese restaurant car was added to the train after the gauge change for the run to Beijing.