Train across Mongolia

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Leaving the border we head to Ulan Bator. The scenery, though still barren moves from the open tundra of Siberia to the Gobi desert. As dry as Siberia was, this is much worse. The flat open lands seem to stretch on for ever. Every once and awhile a few yurts for Mongolian nomads would appear out of nowhere. The big excitement on the train was the occasional herd of camels grazing on what little grass is available. At Ulan Bator a couple decided to venture on their own and meet us at the next stop. The next stop is the China/Mongolian border with a scheduled 4 hour delay. It appears that every country in the world builds train tracks with the same width between the rails. That is every country except Russia and Mongolia. To correct the difference between trains in Russia and China the train had to be modified. It is a slow process but each car is backed into the station garage where the car is lifted on jacks and the entire Russian sized undercarriage is replaced with the correctly sized undercarriage. We had an option of leaving the train and waiting in the station or staying on-board as it headed to depot and watch the mechanics at work. After the refit we were back on track and heading to Beijing.

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