A bit about Google Earth, and the kmz.

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Some additional info (ta, Peter 😉 ) about how to use Google Earth and the kmz file:

There are a few new updates to the kmz, and David asked me to write something about what's in there, and how to use it. So, here goes... I've been getting interested in GIS (Geographic Information Systems) recently, and this trip looks like a good way to test out how effectively I can work with the information we can get in advance. The Trans-Siberian.kmz file contains a lot of data about the journey, which can be accessed through Google Earth. I'm using some of the newer features in Google Earth 5, so if you've still got an older version installed, update it from here. It's free, so why not!

I'll assume a basic familiarity with Google Earth. When you first open the kmz file, there are a barrage of placemarks stretching all the way across Asia, with the journey broken down into sections in the Places sidebar on the left. If you want to focus on a specific stretch of the journey, you can double-click on it in the Places bar, for example the Cologne to Moscow folder. That will zoom into the relevant area on the map, and also expand the folder in the Places bar. There, you'll see a subfolder containing the stations en route, and also some shorter sections of the route. You can get a nice flyover view by single-clicking on one of the paths (eg. Cologne to Warsaw), then clicking on the "Play Tour" button at the bottom of the Places bar. The tour can be controlled by moving the mouse to bottom left of the main view window; this will let you pause, speed up or slow down the tour.

Additionally, I've included full timetable information. If you click one of the yellow pushpins on the map, a window will pop up showing the name of the town, the country and timezone it's in, when we're due to arrive or depart, and how long the train will stay there. Let's pick an example. Zoom to the Irkutsk to Ulaan Baator section, and click on Djida in the middle of the screen.
We're in the Asia/Irkutsk timezone, arriving at twenty past six, and the train stops for two minutes. We won't be getting off there! Also, you have a choice between viewing the times in UTC (that's the same as GMT), local time or Moscow time. All train timetables in Russia are provided on Moscow time, in spite of the fact that we'll be 5 hours ahead when we're that far East.
I've provided a few extra bits and pieces in the Info folder. This includes major river crossings, border and timezone crossings, and sunrises and sunsets. For the borders and timezones, orange diamonds represent a border crossing, while blue are timezone changes within national borders. I've also been experimenting with some animated routes - you can find an example here, although you can't yet use the Tour button described above for this.





Now, this bit's for anyone interested in how I've put this together. Most people can probably stop reading here.

The initial route source was Hill's Trans Siberian RR V4, and for Moscow to Ulan Ude, this is largely unchanged. The remaining sections were traced by hand, for a total of 21,359 points. The timetable info was grabbed from anywhere I could find on the web - bahn.de for the European sections, pass.rzd.ru for the Russian and Mongolian sections, and travelchinaguide for China. This info was cross-referenced with the timetable provided by realrussia.co.uk, converted to UTC, and embedded in the kmz using the ExtendedData feature. I then also embedded the Fleegix Javascript date library to handle timezones, converting the UTC times to local or Moscow time on the fly.
I've also written a python library that parses the raw kml, and calculates a number of other features. This allows me to interpolate points on the path so they're never more than 500m apart, as well as providing approximate times for each point derived from the station arrival and departure information. By then feeding this into an ephemeris calculator, I got the sunrises and sunsets for a moving observer.
The next things I'd like to add are time displays for the extra info placemarks, and to add a "realtime" tour for the animated version of the line. This will involve smoothing the track, and calculating appropriate viewpoints for the entire route. We'll be carrying a GPS or two and trying to log the whole journey, so I'll be comparing the real data with what I've got here afterwards. Yes, I'm a geek. Sorry, the river crossings were added by hand.

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