Archived:NightOnTheGalacticRailroad
This is the crazy plan, that attempts to combine trains, lots of trains, with getting to Japan.
Approximate overall plan
- Days 0-4 (Fri - Tues) - Assemble in London, make our way to Moscow (in time to catch the Tuesday TSR) by $MEANS following $ROUTE.
- Day 1, Saturday: Train to Cologne and a day there. Overnight train east
- Day 2A, Sunday: Warsaw, explore it, overnight train to Kiev (or Minsk)
- Day 2B, Sunday: Miles and miles of catholic monarchist farmland
- Day 3A, Monday: Kiev, explore it, overnight train to Moscow
- Day 3B, Monday: Arrive in Moscow early in the morning, do tourism.
- Day 4, Tuesday: Explore Moscow, catch TSR in the evening
- Days 4-8 (Weds - Sun) - Miles and miles of godless fascist taiga
- Day 9 (Mon) - Arrive Beijing, depart for Shanghai on the Beijing-Shanghai sleeper
- Day 10 (Tues) - Arrive Shanghai, board ship for Osaka
- Day 11 (Weds) - Miles and miles of akitsumikamiless democratic ocean
- Days 12-14 (Thurs - Sat) - Japan
- Day 15 (Sun) - fly home
When to go?
- optimised for Comiket (December or August)
- optimised for all that cherry blossom bznss (March?)
- optimised for temperature in Siberia not being silly (Jun-Aug, probably)
- optimised for leave allowance (March?)
Summary of below reasoning
Reasoning, based on departing on a Saturday:
- Fly there, train back means:
- Can spend most of a week (sunday morning -> friday midday) in japan
- But notably doesn't fit a weekend, unless we extend it even further
- Can spend most of a week (sunday morning -> friday midday) in japan
- Get two and a half days (sunday midday -> wednesday 8am) in china - time enough to look around shanghai + beijing a bit
- Finishes on Monday in Moscow, at which point there's no elegant next thing to do.
- Can fly to hurry back - cheating, but means only 11 days-off-work consumed
- Might be able to do some return flight shennanigans, given that aeroflot changing in moscow is actually a perfectly sensible way to fly to Japan
- Assuming you don't mind bits of your plane falling off, etc.
- In Soviet Russia, 'plane crashes YOU!
- Assuming you don't mind bits of your plane falling off, etc.
- Might be able to do some return flight shennanigans, given that aeroflot changing in moscow is actually a perfectly sensible way to fly to Japan
- Can fly to hurry back - cheating, but means only 11 days-off-work consumed
- Can take the efficient sleeper trains, getting back wednesday, thursday or friday - inelegant
- Could make it into a 3-week thing, meandering a little through europe - let's say Monday afternoon and Tuesday in Moscow, then overnight to St Petersburg for Wed, then overnight to Minsk for Thur, overnight to Kiev for Fri, overnight to Warsaw for Sat, overnight to Cologne for Sun. Or something like that.
- That is basically all my (Smith's) leave gone for the year
- Could make it into a 3-week thing, meandering a little through europe - let's say Monday afternoon and Tuesday in Moscow, then overnight to St Petersburg for Wed, then overnight to Minsk for Thur, overnight to Kiev for Fri, overnight to Warsaw for Sat, overnight to Cologne for Sun. Or something like that.
- Mickey will doubtless end up in jail in Belarus
- I (Smith) move that the eventual spreadsheet of our itinerary incorporate, as is now traditional, a column detailing the respective ages of consent in the regions to be visited
- Finishes on Monday in Moscow, at which point there's no elegant next thing to do.
- Train there, fly back means:
- Elegant first section through Europe - we can spend one day each in Cologne/Warsaw/Kiev (or Minsk)/Moscow, or we could get to Moscow quickly and have pretty much two full days there.
- Why have two full days in Moscow? I (Smith) would assume we just adjust our departure day so that we arrive in time to board the TSR
- On the basis that weekends are free time off, so we might as well spend them somewhere cool. (The Trans-Siberian only runs once a week, so we have to take it Tuesday evening whatever else we do). Also, Moscow is likely to have enough stuff to interest us, (red square, st ivan's etc.) no?
- I suppose the things to do in Moscow are the touristy things; I (Smith) for one would like to visit the Lenin Mausoleum, and I suppose one must visit St Basil's and Jake Corteen for the look of the thing
- On the basis that weekends are free time off, so we might as well spend them somewhere cool. (The Trans-Siberian only runs once a week, so we have to take it Tuesday evening whatever else we do). Also, Moscow is likely to have enough stuff to interest us, (red square, st ivan's etc.) no?
- Why have two full days in Moscow? I (Smith) would assume we just adjust our departure day so that we arrive in time to board the TSR
- Elegant first section through Europe - we can spend one day each in Cologne/Warsaw/Kiev (or Minsk)/Moscow, or we could get to Moscow quickly and have pretty much two full days there.
- Not much time in China - we'd get a full day in Beijing, but like 3 hours in Shanghai
- Naturally arrives in Japan on a Thursday, at which point we either have a long weekend or get a (admittedly cost-effective) midweek flight back after a week or so
- I (Smith) like this plan. Although I have no strong preference as to which end is train and which 'plane, going on the first version of the itinerary below it is likely that I will disengage from the group in Osaka and do my own thing (game) there, making my own way home.
- Actually, thinking about it, I do have a preference; somehow using the TSR to come back to civilisation seems a lot lamer than using it as a route outward to explore strange new worlds; to seek out new life and new perversions; to boldly go where no sensible man has gone before
- Yeah, I think I (Lmm) agree. It's just a shame not to get any time in Shanghai, it's pretty high on my list of cool places to go to.
- Actually, thinking about it, I do have a preference; somehow using the TSR to come back to civilisation seems a lot lamer than using it as a route outward to explore strange new worlds; to seek out new life and new perversions; to boldly go where no sensible man has gone before
Stream of reasoning
- Day 0, Friday: Dudes gather in and around London.
- Day 1, Saturday: Train to Paris/Brussels/Cologne and a day there. Overnight train to, let's say Warsaw. We could get to Moscow by Monday morning on a direct train, but the trans-siberian doesn't leave until Tuesday evening.
- There is a Cologne-Moscow sleeper train
- Yes there is; my point is that doesn't get us to Beijing any quicker, though we could take it if we want more time in Moscow
- There is a Cologne-Moscow sleeper train
- Day 2, Sunday: Warsaw, explore it, overnight train to Kiev (or Minsk)
- Day 3, Monday: Kiev, explore it, overnight train to Moscow
- Day 4, Tuesday: Moscow, explore it, get on the big train in evening
- Day 10, Monday: Beijing, explore it, overnight train to Shanghai
- Day 11, Tuesday: Shanghai, explore it very briefly, ferry at 2pm
- Day 13, Thursday: Arrive in Osaka at 9am, uh, day in osaka
- Day 14, Friday: Kyoto, maybe?
- Day 15, Saturday: One glorious day in Tokyo, or something
- Day 16, Sunday: Morning in Toyko, and fly home.
Um. Thinking about minimising necessary amounts of work-leave. Tuesday is the date with absolute rest around which the blocks must be arranged; if we work backwards and get from London to Moscow as quickly as is trainially possible, then that fixes our start point and allows the maximum amount of time to play with post-TSR. On that basis I (Smith) would be willing to sacrifice any of the pre-Moscow stops if that will speed things up, in order to allow a greater proportion of the presumed maximum duration to occur in the Orient. tl;dr I feel we should get out there as fast as we can and not piss about with seeing Eastern Europe
Let's see if there are any efficiency savings to be had from doing it in reverse:
- Day 16, Sunday: Train to Cologne, then Brussels and Eurostar home; we have about 6 hours to spend in one or other on the way.
- Day 15, Saturday: Get the 8AM train from Moscow, overnight to Berlin.
- Day 14, Friday: Arrive in Moscow at ~6PM, spend the night there
- Day 8, Saturday: Day in Beijing, train in the evening
- Day 7, Friday: Bah. Ferry only arrives on a Thursday, leaving on Tuesday midday, so again we only get like 4 days in Japan this way.
Let's look at it another way: suppose we wanted to go to Japan and other places, how much holiday time would we need?
- Japan, 5 weeks; China, 8 weeks; Russias, 10 weeks. Spare, 2 weeks. Total: Six months.
- Day n, Sunday: Morning in Tokyo, fly home
- Day n-1, Saturday: Let's say we're doing this at Comiket. Comiket!
- Day n-2, Friday: Mickey Comikets early. Other people go do something cultural.
- Day n-3, Thursday: Tokyo, and all its joys.
- Day n-4, Wednesday: Kyoto! History!
- Day n-5, Tuesday: Osaka! Accents!
- Day n-6, Monday: Arrive Osaka, 09:30, rest weary selves, go to a hot springs or something.
- Day n-8, Saturday: A little Shanghai in the morning, ferry at 13:00.
- Day n-9, Friday: I'm going to say spend this in Shanghai, and stay night in Shanghai.
- Day n-10, Thursday: Day in Beijing, sleeper to Shanghai.
Eek, the only good train runs tuesday to monday.
So, best option would be to extend the original plan above by a bit at the end. Constraints: if going out, train is tuesday -> monday, and ferry is tuesday from shanghai - so not much time in shanghai. If coming back, train goes wed -> mon (at 2:28pm, plausible flying time), ferry could arrive sunday (leaving japan on Friday). So a plausible itinerary would look something like:
- Friday evening: Gather
- Saturday hideously early morning: Planes to Japan
- Sunday morning: Arrive in Tokyo, spend some time there and in Osaka.
- Friday midday: Get ferry from Osaka
- Sunday midday: Arrive in Shanghai, spend a day and a half or so there
- Monday night (say): overnight train to Beijing, spend a day and a half there
- Wednesday morning, 8AM: get the big train
- Monday afternoon: Arrive Moscow. Lamers could at this point fly home, meaning they'd only need 2 weeks + 1 day off work; otherwise we could take the rest of the week slowly crossing Europe.
A modest proposal for training out and flying back by Smith
- Day 1 (Sun) - Assemble in London
- Day 2 (Mon) - to Cologne via Brussels
- Day 3 (Tues) - to Moscow via Cologne-Moscow sleeper. NOTE: I have not checked whether this gets us into Moscow in time to board the TSR. I am assuming that it does.
- Days 4-8 (Weds - Sun) - Miles and miles of godless fascist taiga
- Day 9 (Mon) - Arrive Beijing, depart for Shanghai on the Beijing-Shanghai sleeper
- Day 10 (Tues) - Arrive Shanghai, board ship for Osaka
- Day 11 (Weds) - Osaka
- Days 12-14 (Thurs - Sat) - Japan
- Day 15 (Sun) - fly home
The Cologne-Moscow sleeper takes two days, so we'd need to leave on Sunday. (Well, that's not entirely true; if we really wanted maximum train density we could get an early morning Eurostar to Cologne, spend the day going to Warsaw by conventional train, then get the Warsaw-Moscow sleeper which only takes one night) I feel if we're leaving Monday/Sunday we might as well leave Saturday and spent a few days in interesting places, at least for those of us who're conventionally employed (options would either be getting a second day in Moscow, or taking a slower combination of sleepers that would give us days in Warsaw and Kiev - see my plan near the top of the page). Also note that the ferry doesn't arrive in Osaka until Thursday.
That's annoying re ferry - I (Smith) now see what you mean about this getting us annoyingly small amounts of Japan. In that case I will concede both your points and the resulting outline, I believe, becomes something like this:
A modest and viable proposal for training out and flying back by Smith
- Days 1-4 (Sat - Tues) - Assemble in London, make our way to Moscow (in time to catch the Tuesday TSR) by $MEANS following $ROUTE.
- Days 4-8 (Weds - Sun) - Miles and miles of godless fascist taiga
- Day 9 (Mon) - Arrive Beijing, depart for Shanghai on the Beijing-Shanghai sleeper
- Day 10 (Tues) - Arrive Shanghai, board ship for Osaka
- Day 11 (Weds) - Miles and miles of akitsumikamiless democratic ocean
- Days 12-14 (Thurs - Sat) - Japan
- Day 15 (Sun) - fly home
That's basically identical to the topmost of my outlines above, right? Are we actually going to do this then? Awesome --Lmm
Broadly yes, actually. I (Smith) would recommend we draw the attention of the chat to this plan and see how quickly Philip shoots it down in flamesWWWW^W raises some problem we haven't considered ....LOL
What about the silk route?
Just a very quick experiment in seeing if we can get to Japan earlier by avoiding the actual trans-siberian. Initially optimized for getting to Japan soon at all costs; add practicality later.
- Day 0, Friday: late-night Eurostar to Brussels or Cologne. Urgh, but we need to depart Cologne at 09:28 the following morning. Maybe overnight ferry to Amsterdam is doable.
- Day 1, Saturday: Train to Berlin, train to Warsaw, sleeper to Moscow
- Day 2, Sunday: Riding on the train, arrive Moscow 19:54, in time to depart on the 'Tselina' or the slightly faster variant, if we plan our dates carefully.
- Day 5, Wednesday: Arrive 11:57 or maybe 08:42 in Astana. Depart Astana on a Tuesday, or depart Almarty on Sat or Mon... urgh. Assume we somehow manage to leave at 15:10 on Tuesday, then
- Day 6, Thursday: Arrive 08:50 in Ürümqi. Leave 12:25 towards Shanghai
- Day 8, Saturday: Arrive in Shanghai early in the morning (well, 13:39)... just in time to miss the ferry. Urgh.
If we want to catch the ferry on Saturday, we need to...
- Leave Xian by 21:02 Friday, or leave Lanzhou 13:16 Fri (T166/T163, arriving Shanghai at 11:15)
- Leave Urumq at 14:54 Thursday, arriving in Lahzhou at 11:50 (T296) - totally doable if we can get to Astana for 15:10 on Tuesday.
- We can get to Astana on Tuesday morning if we leave Moscow on Saturday night, 22:45 most Saturdays
- Which means we need to leave Cologne by probably 11:28 - or leave Brussels at 09:28 - just after the earliest eurostar, urgh. Might be nicer to take the Eurostar on Thursday evening and catch the Cologne sleeper. Eurostar can get into Lille by 09:07 or Brussels by 09:42. Gah, this must totally be doable. Need to leave Warsaw 22:45, could leave Koln at 11:28 to get there at 23:05. Arrgh.
Conclusion: it is doable, and it does give us an extra 3 days in Japan at the cost of only taking Friday off. But it's a fair bit of faff - we'd need to align our dates correctly with the insane Moscow-Astana timetable (actually quite easy to do, just one out of four weeks would be bad), and this changing trains in China to go faster bsns sounds fraught with Peril. But it's worth considering.
I (Smith) would condone this "additional Japan" stuff. Exploring Shanghai having missed the ferry would be no hardship Well, if we miss the ferry that means no japan, basically.
Note; yes this is better than catching the "Vostock", which runs saturday-saturday.
The weekly ferry from vladivostock arrives fridays (leaving wed), so not terribly useful.
Aha! I think we don't have to go via Moscow. This could work.
Leave Astana 15:10 Tue. Or leave Almaty.. nah (can only leave mon or sat).. Leake Aktogay 10:49 wed anywayLeave Novosibirsk 16:46 tue.WAIT this is LIES.- Leave Yekaterinburg 19:55 Mon
- Leave Minsk 16:05 Sat, OHHH YEEEAH
- Or leave Warsaw 21:00 Fri
- Would need to leave brussels at 7:28 fri urgh, 09:28 urgh for minsk. Or LEAVE PARIS AT 09:09 AND GET TO MINSK IN TIME FUCK YEAH
- Wait, it's better than that, DB knows better trains than realrussia. We can leave paris at 21:39 on Fri (off the 18:02 eurostar) and get to Novosibirsk by 15:45 Tue.
| Leave | At | By | Arrive | At |
| Orsk | 14:35 Mon (day 3) | 484С | Astana | |
| Astana | 15:10 Tue (day 4) | 054Ц | Urumqi | 08:58 Thursday (day 6) |
| Urumqi | 14:54 Thur (day 6) | T296 | Lanzhou | 11:50 Friday (day 7) |
| Lanzhou | 13:16 Friday (day 7) | T166/T163 | Shanghai | 11:15 Saturday (day 8) |
| Shanghai | 13:00 Saturday (day 8) | http://www.chinajapanferry.com/ | Osaka | 09:30 Monday (day 10) |
Let's try that east to west, for completeness
- Leave Brussels on the last eurostar, 20:29 Sunday, or maybe the first one in the morning, 06:51 monday.
- Leave Minsk 15:34 Sat, or 00:22 Sun to get into Brussels at 06:03 after no sleep monday. Or leave Moscow 8am sat or 16:50 Sat
- Leave Astana 17:30 Wed, arriving 12:01 Sat. Or leave 11:00 on alternate thursdays to get to moscow at 15:25 (Potentially leave karaganda earlier or something)
- Urk. Let's try leaving Urqmi 23:58 Mon, arriving in *almaty* 06:05 wed. From which we can get to Astana at 07:13 on Thur, by leaving 10:55 on Wed.
- So let's say we leave Kobe on Friday at 10:30, arriving in Tianjin Sunday 14:00. Can chinese railways link us up? Don't think so.
Hmm
- Leave London 17:04 Fri, arr brussels 20:03 Fri
- Leave brussels 20:28 Fri, arr Ekaterinburg 18:17 Mon after lol
- Get to Beijing 05:32 Sat. No good, need to leave it at 22:15 Fri.