Back on the Trans-Siberian - but only for 51hrs

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We're back on the Trans-Siberian again for a 3 day trip from Irkutsk to Ekaterinburg. This particular train, the No9, is much posher and more modern than the previous trains. There are digital displays at the ends of the carriage telling you the temperature, Moscow Time, if the toilet is free and which station is coming up. We've never had anything that sophisticated before but there's still the trusty samovar in the corner for making cups of tea & coffee.

Initially the landscape feels far more inhabited and industrial. There are even giant fields of potatoes – the first signs of commercial agriculture we have seen. The forests are still around but they occur in patches between the more frequent villages and the occasional town complete with tower blocks. The whole area is a hot spot for coal and oil and we pass some huge refineries with pipelines running alongside the tracks – its like being back on the Dalton Highway, especially with all the purple fireweed around. As it gets dark we can see car headlights in the distance – its seems really strange and out of place.

Overnight we passed the mid-point of the Trans-Siberian route (km4648) and this morning the landscape has changed again. We're back to occasional villages and more open grasslands punctuated with dense forests and vast drifts of wild-flowers. Each drift is dominated by one species so you get a great patch of yellow followed by a blue patch then a few km further a pink patch. All very colourful and pleasing. The oil refineries have been replaced by timber yards – seeing all the wood stacked up bring back the intense aroma of pine that we got when we passed through logging areas on the bike. Later on it becomes flatter and quite swampy as we approach the Baraba Steppes and the fir trees have largely been replaces by birch and aspen. There's more of the dead white tree trunks we saw way back in the Far East.

One new addition to the landscape is water towers. There seems to be one on every station but we didn't see¬ any between Vladivostok and Irkutsk. They come in all sorts of shapes; round, square, hexagonal, and are all very intricate and decorative. But, like the restored steam locos, they lurk at the ends of the platforms and whiz past before you get chance to take a photo.

We're still travelling with the eye-spy book of the Trans-Siberian and peering out of the windows to see the km markers and track down the exciting spots:
- km4100 – the Yenisey River: the traditional border between west and east Siberia (the official border is at km3820). The river flows 5539km from Mongolia to the Arctic Ocean picking up the Angara River that flows out of Lake Baikal on the way. These big rivers were crossed by steel hog's back bridges and most of them are still in use today. They are supported on granite pillars with thick buttresses slanting upstream to deflect the huge chunks of ice that float down the river during the spring thaw. They are quite impressive.
- km4098 – Krasnoyarsk: with a red tile mosaic of Lenin & the Comrades in the square outside the station. Of-course the train has to stop at the furthest platform so we have to sprint to see it In the past we'd just run across the tracks with the locals but not here – there are bridges up and over the tracks. Its one of many small changes that indicate we are slowly but surely getting closer to 'The West' & 'civilisation' e.g. no locals selling home-made snacks on the platforms, H&S notices on the platforms, fewer little wooden stations and more grand brick edifices
- km3570 – we relapse into childhood and have a little sing along session in our compartment as we pass the branch line to Tomsk. The guide book states “this is not a Womble as Brits of a certain age may expect but a charming old Siberian city” but we cant help ourselves.

The guide books also say that no self-respecting Russian would be seen in the restaurant car but we decide a meal in the dining car is all part of the experience. Like the rest of the train it very modern decked out in lime green and purple but sure enough there's is nobody else in there. There's a menu but its more a case of what they have got rather than what's on the menu. Still we end up with two very tasty meals of meat and potatoes.

-km3335 – Novosibrisk – we don't arrive until 23:39, which feels like 01:39 as we got 2 hours back today, but its listed as one of the 10 best stations in Russia so we have to stay awake and go exploring. Its Siberia's largest station, “an impressive glass vaulted building that took from 1929 to 1941 to complete”. It certainly is impressive with grand chandeliers everywhere which make it feel very Russian but at the same time it also feels “urban” like we are leaving the wilds of Siberia behind. Its so big we get lost and take a wong turn trying to get back to our train!
-km3338 – the Great Ob River Bridge – the original a 870m, 7 span hog's back bridge over the 5410km long river.

We sleep through the next 650km of track which apparently has the greatest freight density of any railway in the world - mostly due to wagons carrying coal from the mines in Siberia to the processing plants in the Urals. Certainly in the last 2 days we have seen far more goods trains carrying wood, army tanks, railway sleeper and all sort of unidentifiable goods.

Next morning (km2795) its all change again – we seem to be back in a more isolated region with villages few and far between. The landscape keeps changing; scrub-land, fields of sunflowers, birch forests, grasslands and even salt lakes. The towns we do stop at are much bigger & industrialised with impressive stations e.g. Omsk, with a station filled with chandeliers and statues and with colourful cranes lining the Irtysh river.

Way back in the Far East we seemed to be the only train in existence now we are never the only train and in stations we are usually surrounded by goods trains or occasionally other passenger trains. At one station we walk past a train with Chinese characters on it that I absent mindedly read as Moscow - Beijing, then we have to stop and go back to double check as I cant read Chinese - sure enough its the Trans-Manchurian. Train. Its amazing the strange bits of info that you pick up without realising it, like the Chinese characters for Beijing and Moscow – where did I learn them???

At km2102 we officially leave Siberia and enter the Urals. The landscape stays the same. Its another 200km before we start to climb and then its not a particularly impressive climb. You just imagine The Urals, the divide between Europe and Asia, as some grand majestic mountains but there's no sign of any. Maybe that will change when we get into the heart of them but for now we stay on the Asia side, jumping of the train at Ekaterinburg (km 1816). We've been on the train for 51hours so a spot more touristing is required..

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Photos

The Perfect Siberian Retreat
since Vladivostok we've been passing these isolated houses usually in a forest clearing

The Not So Perfect Siberian Retreat
one of the many oil refineries along the track. There's also lots of coal mines.

potatoes on a grand scale
the first commercial argriculture we have seen from the train.

day 2 and its back to small villages
but even they look smarter and less rural plus and they all have telegraph poles. All the fences in this area are in this style - different colours but same style

day 2 - the forests are back
accompanied by great drifts of wild flowers – either all pink or yellow or blue, never mixed

going round the bend
I'm sure we had a blue engine when we set off yesterday

water towers
we saw none between Vladivostock and Irkutsk, now they seem to be on every station.

km4100 in the eye-spy guide
the original hog's back bridge across the Yenisey River. Its raised on granite piers so the ice can under it during the spring thaw.

km4098 in the eye-spy guide
the red tile mosaic of Lenin & the Comrades in the square outside Krasnoyarsk station.

km3715-Mariinsk station
complete with other trains (passenger & goods) and an up and over bridge - no sauntering across the tracks any more, the lines are too busy now.

Moscow to Beijing
I didn't know I could read Chinese until I wandered past and read this. Its actually the Trans-Manchurian on its way to Beijing

braving the restaurant car
with a snazzy lime green and purple livery its just not how you expect a Russian restaurant car to be. The food was actually very good.

km3489 in the eye-spy guide
The River Tom on its way to Tomsk - cue the Wombles music

km3335 in the eye-spy guide
Novosibrisk station, one of the 10 best in Russia - its very grand with chandeliers everywhere.

monuments on Novosibrisk Station
WWII monument: families waving off their loved ones.
Trans-Siberian centenary monument: a replica of a Stephenson locomotive that ran on the Russian Imperial Railways from 1937

day 3 and its back to agriculture
fields of sunflowers punctuate the forests. We also saw haystacks and those giant round hay bales.

km2712 - Omsk station
the sparkly new bits - I'm not totally sure what the statue represents but its obviously railway related

km2712 - Omsk station
the old traditional bits: Lenin & and old steam loco

km2712 - Omsk station
the ticket office with its chandeliers, they are everywhere. There's art deco details on all the doors and windows and thsi isn't even one of the 10 best stations

km2712 - Omsk station
a sausage in a bun for breakfast - this far west even the kiosks are colour co-ordinated with the station, not like the little shacks back east.

km2565-Nazyvayevskaya Station
even the small town stations where we don't stop are grand now, no cute little wooden station buildings any more

km2144 - Tyumen Station - another Lenin & The Comrades statue.
Founded in 1586 this is Siberia's oldest town. Exiles and convicts stopped here on their way to the Gulags. Then Lenin's body came here for safe keeping in WWII.