Before 2022, I once noticed that the Deutsche Bahn app for German trains let me put Pyongyang, the capital of North Korea, as destination. The app is good at finding international connections, but it only shows stations that are actually reachable from Germany. After some research, I found it was indeed possible to find a connection from Europe to Pyongyang via Vladivostok once per month. Not anymore though, they removed the Russian train network from their system.
Problem with their website is that it appears that your journey is possible only to then be disappointed at the last step of the check-out. Happens way too often and especially for international travel.
Btw. I nearly traveled from Budapest to Hamburg in a single train but alas as written above I had to put in a stop in Munich just so that I could finish my order (both routes were roughly 14hours which I found quite manageable).
This article is not quite accurate like some of the others that have excitedly reported on this stretch a bit before it’s true. You cannot yet travel this all the way by passenger rail in either theory or practice. By only the narrowest of gaps: LCR ends in Vientiane and the train line to Bangkok terminates at Thanaleng outside town. The distance between them is not far, but it is not connected by rail with passenger service. I tried. I’ve ridden both the LCR, and the SRT service via the Thanaleng shuttle to Nong Khai prior to catching the sleeper to Bangkok. If there was a way to get from one station to another by rail between Thanaleng and Vientiane I would have done it!
This will change when the high speed rail to Bangkok is complete, but we’re not quite there yet.
If you need to change trains, you will need to walk (or travel by non-train) some distance in all cases. I wonder, is there a limit to the transfer distance, so that it still counts as traveling by rail only?
I finished it in 2019~, same with skipping the Laos section that didn’t exist. I contributed a bit to Seat61 from rural local stations in Myanmar while it was still open.
I think it's a pretty stupid question to begin with as it ignores visas. Also, too many different gauge widths means far too many train changes to be considered a part of the same journey.
If your definition includes a visa-free journey with no need to change trains, then the theretical limit is pretty easy to figure out: Minsk - Vladivostok. The second longest theoretical journey would probably be northern British Colombia down to Mexico / Guatemala border.
Because not only does the train trip become theretical, but so does the person taking the trip.
There's zero people in this world that don't have to avoid certain countries. Even if you magically get a visa for every country (and I would only describe 1/4 visas in my passport as trivial), that's not a guarantee you will be able to actually enter and leave the country uninterrupted.
Every single person that visited a ridiculous amount of countries has at least one story to tell about how they were apprehended and accused of being a spy. Using fringe little train lines usually not taken by anyone non-local would raise even more red flags than doing the same with other types of transport (motorcycle / bike / car).
I'd like to dream one day in a future generations away from now you'll be able to go all the way from one end to the other, without political barriers interrupting your epic tour of this huge swath of our planet. Maybe we'll even bridge Gibraltar so you can continue on through Africa as well.
We have gone backwards in this regard, there was a time when you could get the train from the UK to Egypt or even to Iraq, with railway posters advertising such services.
Check out retours.eu for some classy posters from a time when railways ruled along with ocean liners. You really could get to places that we have subsequently deemed to be too war-torn for travel. Even in America you had 'broadway' tracks (four tracks, for slow and fast services in each direction) racing across the country, with competing operators, each with their own 'broadway' tracks.
Interestingly, in the UK, train services have not got quicker, necessarily. There were also the Beeching cuts that decimated the amount of services.
Ease of traveling is indirectly correlated with political diversity.
If one power (the Mongols, the Romans, the Inca, the Russians, the Chinese, the British) undisputedly controls some territory, it is easier to travel across it than when there are two, three ... twenty smaller powers along the way.
It's both a clickbait title and probably true. If the title was 'no evidence for human completion of longest possible contiguous rail journey' would you still think them provincial? Would you still click?
Somehow I highly doubt there's a train that goes all the way from Portugal to Laos without needing to transfer, the first few paragraphs uses words to suggest such a train trip exists.
It's possible to stay on one train from Vladivostok to Moscow, on the train ride number 001Э (002Э goes the opposite direction): https://www.russianrail.com/train/rossiya
The article not only says that, but even discusses it in detail.
One would know that if, you know, one read at least 1/3 of the article before posting a comment.
Before 2022, I once noticed that the Deutsche Bahn app for German trains let me put Pyongyang, the capital of North Korea, as destination. The app is good at finding international connections, but it only shows stations that are actually reachable from Germany. After some research, I found it was indeed possible to find a connection from Europe to Pyongyang via Vladivostok once per month. Not anymore though, they removed the Russian train network from their system.
There’s a blog post series from a guy who did this.
https://vienna-pyongyang.blogspot.com/2008/04/how-everything...
I read this blog back in the day. Fascinating saga.
Deutsche Bahn lets you enter stations outside of Germany, e.g. here Liverpool Lime Street to London St. Pancras: https://www.bahn.de/buchung/fahrplan/suche#sts=true&so=Liver...
Problem with their website is that it appears that your journey is possible only to then be disappointed at the last step of the check-out. Happens way too often and especially for international travel.
Btw. I nearly traveled from Budapest to Hamburg in a single train but alas as written above I had to put in a stop in Munich just so that I could finish my order (both routes were roughly 14hours which I found quite manageable).
This opportunity was available before the covid. Now Poland has closed the railway connection with Belarus
This article is not quite accurate like some of the others that have excitedly reported on this stretch a bit before it’s true. You cannot yet travel this all the way by passenger rail in either theory or practice. By only the narrowest of gaps: LCR ends in Vientiane and the train line to Bangkok terminates at Thanaleng outside town. The distance between them is not far, but it is not connected by rail with passenger service. I tried. I’ve ridden both the LCR, and the SRT service via the Thanaleng shuttle to Nong Khai prior to catching the sleeper to Bangkok. If there was a way to get from one station to another by rail between Thanaleng and Vientiane I would have done it!
This will change when the high speed rail to Bangkok is complete, but we’re not quite there yet.
Hopefully soon. :)
If you need to change trains, you will need to walk (or travel by non-train) some distance in all cases. I wonder, is there a limit to the transfer distance, so that it still counts as traveling by rail only?
Yes. It’s a transfer if it’s the same train station. If it isn’t, it isn’t. :)
I did this route (sans the new Laos line, which was a bus at the time) in 2014. The world really was a different place.
Shout out to 'The man in seat 61', couldn't have done it without it.
https://www.seat61.com/
I finished it in 2019~, same with skipping the Laos section that didn’t exist. I contributed a bit to Seat61 from rural local stations in Myanmar while it was still open.
https://reustle.org/rtw shows my map around the entire planet. Next time by moto!
Fwiw, https://meetup.tokyotech.com/ on https://reustle.org/ doesn't resolve. I've daydreamed "I arrive in X. Museums? Meetups!"
Amazing! What was your budget? For how long?
> After all, the definition of the longest possible train journey is “the shortest possible route between the two farthest possible stations.”
I’m trying to think, what would be the most efficient way to compute this? There has to be something better than brute force
Oh I think this is just finding the graph diameter
I think it's a pretty stupid question to begin with as it ignores visas. Also, too many different gauge widths means far too many train changes to be considered a part of the same journey.
If your definition includes a visa-free journey with no need to change trains, then the theretical limit is pretty easy to figure out: Minsk - Vladivostok. The second longest theoretical journey would probably be northern British Colombia down to Mexico / Guatemala border.
>I think it's a pretty stupid question to begin with as it ignores visas.
Why should it take them into account? 99% of the time they're a trivial matter.
Because not only does the train trip become theretical, but so does the person taking the trip.
There's zero people in this world that don't have to avoid certain countries. Even if you magically get a visa for every country (and I would only describe 1/4 visas in my passport as trivial), that's not a guarantee you will be able to actually enter and leave the country uninterrupted.
Every single person that visited a ridiculous amount of countries has at least one story to tell about how they were apprehended and accused of being a spy. Using fringe little train lines usually not taken by anyone non-local would raise even more red flags than doing the same with other types of transport (motorcycle / bike / car).
I'd like to dream one day in a future generations away from now you'll be able to go all the way from one end to the other, without political barriers interrupting your epic tour of this huge swath of our planet. Maybe we'll even bridge Gibraltar so you can continue on through Africa as well.
We have gone backwards in this regard, there was a time when you could get the train from the UK to Egypt or even to Iraq, with railway posters advertising such services.
Check out retours.eu for some classy posters from a time when railways ruled along with ocean liners. You really could get to places that we have subsequently deemed to be too war-torn for travel. Even in America you had 'broadway' tracks (four tracks, for slow and fast services in each direction) racing across the country, with competing operators, each with their own 'broadway' tracks.
Interestingly, in the UK, train services have not got quicker, necessarily. There were also the Beeching cuts that decimated the amount of services.
Ease of traveling is indirectly correlated with political diversity.
If one power (the Mongols, the Romans, the Inca, the Russians, the Chinese, the British) undisputedly controls some territory, it is easier to travel across it than when there are two, three ... twenty smaller powers along the way.
Tangentially related, I spotted a show on Nebula yesterday about two men going on a train journey from the arctic to Africa called Downie Express.
also available on youtube. same channel
It will be possible.
Like many people I've done London to Beijing in the past, and so people will do this in the future too.
I used to travel to Tokyo from New York, regularly.
I would get on the Long Island Railroad, in Huntington, and get off the Narita Express, in Shinagawa.
Strangely enough, I would get off the train, before I got on the train.
The idea that nobody has ever taken this journey makes the author sound provincial - who's with me?
It's both a clickbait title and probably true. If the title was 'no evidence for human completion of longest possible contiguous rail journey' would you still think them provincial? Would you still click?
Now there is no railroad connection between Belarus and Poland. Shame!
[flagged]
>Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
I enjoyed the full piece, personally.
Somehow I highly doubt there's a train that goes all the way from Portugal to Laos without needing to transfer, the first few paragraphs uses words to suggest such a train trip exists.
It's possible to stay on one train from Vladivostok to Moscow, on the train ride number 001Э (002Э goes the opposite direction): https://www.russianrail.com/train/rossiya
And if anyone goes from Portugal to Laos, they should read this book along the way: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Railway_Bazaar
The article not only says that, but even discusses it in detail. One would know that if, you know, one read at least 1/3 of the article before posting a comment.
Guess who missed the last 1/4 of my first sentence...
Well ok the first 1/4 of that sentence I left unedited so it suggests I didn't read past the first 2 paragraphs...