Distance: 30 km, journey time 7 minutes, max speed 431km/h (268 mph)

Well here we go for the last train of this trip – but one seemingly without rails!
It’s a 20 minute taxi ride from the Bund to Longyang Road, where the downtown Maglev station is to be found. A short hike up an escalator, then you buy a ticket (mine was a first class or “VIP” ticket, one way, discounted if you show your flight ticket, RMB 80 or £8). Cheaper seats further back are maybe RMB 40…

The trains depart every 15 minutes and take just 7 minutes to reach Pudong International Airport.
Once I had stowed my baggage, I wandered forward to the cockpit door, which you can look through to see “the driver”. I must say it was a bit of a “Wizzard of Oz” moment, as the pilot of this train was a wearing a hoody and looked like he was working hard to improve his score on Mortal Kombat rather than preparing to take responsibility for my life on an ultra high speed rail line.

After about five minutes he finished his game, sat bolt upright, adjusted his seat and hit some buttons – the doors closed, the train levitated, and we shot off towards the airport at warp speed.

I watched the speed indicator as we accelerated up to my previous speed record from the high speed “G train” I took from Beijing last week – 300 km/h. Things start really flashing past, and this train has banked corners, so you feel a little bit more G force. But it kept on accelerating. I watched it cross 400 km/h and within a couple of minutes we had topped out at 430 km/h – briefly I was the fastest 1st class train passenger (an otherwise empty VIP class) on Planet Earth!

At this speed the outside world really is a bit of a whirl. Anyway, it didn’t last too long before we edged back to 300 km/h, and quickly we arrived at the airport. I learned from my concierge at the hotel that between 9.00 and 11.00 in the morning the train reaches its top speed, but later in the day it’s about 50 seconds slower on the run, to save power apparently..

I found Pudong Airport a bit like Heathrow – not very friendly to a transferring passenger carrying baggage, but was pleased I had done this trip rather than take a taxi the whole way. As many say, it’s a bit of a shame this line does not go all the way into the city, but its still well worth using.

So there we go, a 12,490 km journey over three weeks which I would definitely commend to you. I hope you have enjoyed my posts and found them informative, especially if you are considering doing this trip yourself. I also hope you have found them amusing if you are not planning to do this trip, but know me, and were perhaps hoping I might get detained in a gulag!

I have tried hard to present my experiences in an honest and straightforward way – it’s a journey that needs a fair amount of planning to work through the red tape, but once on the rails, a real adventure. It’s not hard, but does need one to remain open minded and live in the moment of the biggest train trip out there.

I will not be posting further on my continuing travels in Asia, as they don’t employ the train, the subject of this blog. I will however post more on kit reviews and image galleries whilst its all fresh in my mind.

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G15 High Speed Train, Beijing South – Shanghai Hongqiao

Sad to be leaving the Kerry, but up early for my journey to Shanghai. In the Shangri-La way, everything was a whir of efficiency at check out and I was soon deposited in a wifi enabled car and accompanied by Chris, the hotel concierge. I discovered on the short journey to the station that this blog is actually blocked in China, but the hotel route their internet via Hong Kong, so as a result I have had no problems posting. I hasten to add that I think it is Blogger that is banned, not my posts..

Beijing South is an impressive building (and the biggest train station in China) but yet so much easier to use than the sprawling Beijing Central station. I actually didn’t need the interpreter services of Chris at all – it was more clearly signed than most British airports!

The investment and scale of the high speed rail network in China is amazing. On Tuesday this week they opened the new line from Beijing to Canton, cutting the journey time from 20 hours to just 8 hours. The line to Shanghai is similarly fast, covering over 1300 km in just 4 hours 45 minutes. The Trans-Siberian covered on average 1100 km per 24 hours!

The G train that I travelled on had three classes – second class, first class and business class (the most expensive). If you travel in business class you get the “VIP” service package – lounge, food etc.

The system at the station is that after going through a speedy security check as you enter the main station, there are a series of airport style gates for each train. These open 20-30 minutes before departure, and you show your ticket on entry (they didn’t ask to see my passport, but it’s number appears on my ticket).

I think the station reminds me of an enormous version Stansted Airport (for all the right design reasons) and hope Sir Norman Foster would not be offended – i.e. you only have to walk about 100m forwards from entering the concourse to getting down onto the platform for your train, real functionality.

After being left in the VIP lounge for an hour or so my porter collected me and fast tracked me to the front of a big queue. We took the lift down to the platform where he sped ahead to the very end of the train and deposited me in the sightseeing/quiet/VIP cabin – more the feel of a Gulfstream 4 than a train, with just five seats. There is so much leg room here that all my bags are in front of my seat and I can’t reach them with my legs. It reclines into a full flat bed and has a TV monitor (which I didn’t try or see anyone else using).

Having heard about the sad passing of Gerry Anderson this week, the design of the inside of the cabin also reminded me of an Eagle from “Space 1999”- Look at the proportions of the window and the curve of the wall.. It would be nice to think that the designer was inspired by futuristic kids television!

I popped out to take a few quick snaps, then I waited in my chair watching the LED panel ticking down the time to blast off. I was slightly alarmed that the pilot had not arrived at T-5 (he has to get in via the cabin) when it dawned on me that I was sat at the back of the train and not the front – Beijing South is not a terminus. So at 10.57 the doors slid closed and with the gentle whir of motors, three minutes early, we eased out of the station. The first few kilometres were a reduced speed, but within 10 minutes we were accelerating up to 300km/h and beyond. It was unnervingly smooth.

I spent some time in the main business cabin, where I chose to have my lunch (seat 4F). There were just 12 seats here – it was a bit brighter, wider and more open than the “rocket style” of the nose section, with three seats across. Both are very nice places to be.

Lunch was simple but tasty. There was no choice, it was a beef and duck medley with noodle soup. No tea or coffee, just water or Coke.

As a recently fully trained Trans-Sib survivor, I noticed that there was the modern equivalent of a samovar at the end of first class, so no problem if you bring your own noodles. Here’s a picture of first class, which looked quite popular.

I had thought that the train was a non stop service, but in fact we stopped briefly at Jinan West and later Nanjing South. The trip is so fast that you watch the outside temperature rise as you travel south. I let countryside the flash past to a soundtrack of “The Very Best of Japan”, which seemed to fit the surroundings rather well.

If you are thinking of buying a ticket for this part of my journey, a few notes that you might want to run through –

1) As I understand it, some trains don’t have a full business class, just first class seats for premium passengers. It’s worth making sure your ticket fare looks like the right one. Mine cost 1700 RMB (about £170) + service charge from ChinaTicketsNet. I ordered it before I left home and it was delivered by courier to my hotel in Beijing without any difficulty.

2) Some trains (the ones with no separate business class carriage) have a very small number of seats that are the same as business class but right at the front of the train (like my seat) with an opaque view into “the cockpit”. These are sometimes called “VIP” or “sightseeing” class, but it confuses the system described above, as they are also treated as business class on trains that have a business class cabin. I think its about half of all the trains – its easy to spot because there is no business class fare available on that train from the ticket agent eg ChinaTicketsNet.

My conclusion is that you will unlikely to be able to buy “sightseeing” or “VIP” seats on trains even with business class fares available, as the agents don’t sell “sightseeing class” as a separate product (probably owing to all the confusion and the small number of seats). I would add that the normal business class carriage is nearly identical, so no real need to worry about all this..

3) My business class ticket, by chance, allocated me a seat in a sightseeing section at the very end of the train, in a business class carriage (carriage 16, Richard Burton style – seat 1A) – there are only five seats, and I note one pair are placed together as a sort of love seat with no armrest in the middle 2A/B. A bit scary if you had to share that with someone that you didn’t know!

It’s all a little bit confusing, so I hope that’s clear!

We arrived on time into a misty murky Shanghai Hongquai that is on the same scale as Beijing South – modern and massive! I’m stopping in Shanghai for a couple of days now – my final leg, only 30km, but the fastest 30km currently possible by train on Earth, is on New Year’s Eve – the Maglev.

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I am currently sat at the Russian border waiting for my passport to be returned before we trundle over into Mongolia. A visa point in passing – Russian immigration don’t seem at all fussed about deregistering our visas. After going to the trouble of registering it in Moscow in the first place, I’m disappointed they don’t seemingly want (or need) to deregister it. Perhaps the exit procedure does this automatically in the system these days? It’s too complicated a question to try and ask, so I’m just going to not worry about this.

There is absolutely nothing to see or do here – except take a shower in a single spotless and well heated bathroom on the platform. The only snag is they just have one shower, and Stephan has called “shotgun”. As I’m panicky about being left behind at the best of times, I’m not going to risk it. The thought of running naked down the platform after the train in the snow isn’t a good one.

There are a whole load of officials here on the train now – Police, Army, Russian sniffer dogs, Mongolian sniffer dogs, immigration, and plain clothes people with torches – its a busy place. The Mongolian customs officer (but still in Russia?) asked me if I had anything to declare. I showed her my vodka & wine stash and she looked at me as if to say that I might not actually have enough booze, before wishing me a “Happy New Year”!

I thought it was all over when an immigration lady returned my stamped passport a few minutes ago, but there is now another Russian woman searching my compartment (which I had to leave) and I can see that she takes pride in being thorough. I put up my Christmas decorations today, and they seem to be a bit of an icebreaker – even some of the severest looking security people allow themselves a smile when they see my mini Christmas tree flashing away!

We seem to be without a restaurant carriage tonight, so I’m going to use some of my emergency rations – possibly the Russian equivalent of the Pot Noodle, the “Pot Potato”..

I feel a movie coming on, assuming they let me into Mongolia. I’m thinking of watching “Spies Like Us”..

Update – I’m finally “in” after repeating the same process at Dozorne, on the Mongolian side of the frontier. My compartment has now been searched twice and seen three different sniffer dogs so far. The last official who visited me was so friendly that I mistook him for a black market currency trader at first, but I saw he was wearing a police or customs badge under his parka. He shook me by the hand (twice) and wished me a nice trip to Mongolia. It’s a pity that you don’t see that at Heathrow T3..!

Another update – this man must have been playing “good cop – bad cop” with his colleague, who has just returned my passport. He spent an unnatural amount of time comparing me to my photograph and he clearly prides himself in looking very severe in his leather great coat and official briefcase. He didn’t even smile at my Christmas decorations. Bar humbug!

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The train has just left Ulan-Ude (we are still on time!) after a 40 minute stop, our longest so far. Overnight we passed through Irkutsk and have covered another 1200 km since this time yesterday. We seem to have a fresh engine each day – still on overhead electric at the moment, but changing to diesel tomorrow.

We came in alongside the Russian Trans-Siberian “Rossiya” train which I think goes on to Vladivostok – but we soon part company and branch off this line soon to start heading South, bound next for Ulan Bator (or “UB”).

The scenery is starting to change as we approach the Mongolian border. There are now vast frozen rivers and mountains ahead in the distance – all that lies between us and the Gobi desert.

I didn’t sleep to well last night, partly due to it getting quite hot, party due to the amount of beer drunk and party due to another two hours time change – I have now caught up with local time, Moscow time +4 hours. I popped my head out near Irkutsk – it was -32 C on the platform. A bit nippy!

A new character appeared in the bar last night in the shape of Dimitri, a para medic from Ulan-Ude. It was a near escape from oblivion, as he was unstoppable on the toasting front – at least 50.. Also amazing how far you can get in a conversation with an iPhone dictionary, a sense of humour, and some comedy miming.

In passing I’m slightly worried that I might have accidentally placed an order for some unique fish from Lake Baikal, and the locals have it salted and apparently its very smelly..

After supper (smoked salmon followed by pork escalope) Stephan and I visited the Russian sector to see how they live, which we discovered now only comprises of one single carriage. It has a proper Provodnitsa, and she was concerned we might accidentally fall out the end of the train!

On gadget news, you may like to know that I have finished building the Mark 2 heat shield to cool down my compartment. All you need to make this at home yourself is 10 metres of aluminium foil and some gaffer tape. It’s more effective than the Mark 1 as it is 10 sheets thick and covers the whole length of the radiator.

I counted the number of doors I have to contend with from my compartment to the restaurant carriage last night – 25 including the inner and outer doors. My technique is improving though and I’m getting faster, which is good as I’m dressed in shorts and flip flops and would not last long at the temperature outside.

I’m now enjoying some reasonable coffee and some amazing scenery as we begin to climb through the mountains.

I’ll report back on the border formalities which will start in about six hours time…

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Just a few night time updates..

I had to strip right off this afternoon as the temperature on board my carriage was about 30 C. I was impressed that my carriage attendant understood how I felt and said he could turn down the heat, but I have only just worked out how. He has opened the roof panel above the toilet at the end of the carriage, stuffed a blanket inside and jammed the door open with the giant pair of chop sticks (actually used to unblock the toilet)..Somehow this is forcing cold air into the carriage as we move along. It’s a tad Heath Robinson, but seems to work so I’m not knocking it! Several carriages are either too hot or too cold – I’m lucky in that as the only passenger in this carriage I get to vote on the best temperature..

I also tested out my improvised “heat shield” today – this was a roll of tin foil gaffer taped over the radiator in my compartment. I thought it was a good idea, but it has made no difference at all. Back to the Trans-Siberian drawing board!

On the subject of heat shields, I can see sparks flying past my window tonight, so our boiler is either working too well, or we on fire at the moment.

I had dinner in the restaurant car (with Stephan the German) tonight – Solyanka followed by a pork escalope with fried potatoes and a couple of beers – 1000 Roubles (£20). For some reason they were closing at 20.00 Moscow time, no idea why.. We have also run out of Baltika No. 7, so I have switched to Baltika No. 3. You can always hop off and go shopping on the platform – a scene here of the station supermarkets of Novosibirsk!

You might be relieved to know that the flood in carriage No. 7 is now under control. I think the toilets are closed and the samovar is out of order, but the guys with screwdrivers are still hard at work.

I’m worried that I have been rumbled on the “secret key” but I’m using the language barrier to cover my tracks. Guard B (there are two of them working shifts, so A and B) was puzzled how I unlocked my compartment without his help. A schoolboy error on my part.. in passing I prefer Guard A – he’s more of a fun guy, but both seem highly efficient.

The local time zone is beginning to be a problem.. This afternoon it got dark at about 14.45 Moscow time. I have decided to start moving my watch towards Mongolian time (+4 hours, GMT +8) but this means working in both Moscow time (on which the train works to) and my own time zone – hopefully it will work, but it means an earlier start tomorrow to make the most of the short day – I’m going forward 2 hours tonight then 2 hours tomorrow night so that when I get to the Mongolian border on Saturday I will be in the correct time zone and avoid a big jump..

Quite a few “Crazy Ivan’s” today – at the wrong moment (eating soup or crossing between carriages) its a potential disaster. I have no idea what kinetics cause this, but I’m not putting down my glass of Merlot tonight.

I think that’s all for now. Oh, it’s a movie night tonight – “The Cassandra Crossing”. A classic train flick!

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Morning!

I woke at dawn today (that’s about 09.30 Moscow time) – just in time to try getting off the train for the first time at the stop in Kirov. The drill is that the carriage attendant gets kitted up, enters the outer compartment of the carriage (unheated) and opens the door. He then gets down, scrapes off the ice, sweeps away the snow, and wipes the handles so you can get off safely. All you need to do is agree how long the stop is for – but I’m not trusting my linguistic skills yet (or sign language), so I’m staying close by the train.

Not much to see on a Kirov station platform at 10am – in fact so much freezing fog that I could not even see my carriage from 50 metres away. The clock on the platform read -21 C, so some useful acclimatisation training as things get colder.

We took on coal – yes coal! – to feed the boiler that runs the heating and hot water on board each carriage. On closer inspection, we have a small fire alight at one end of our car – the guard also makes his own breakfast on this using a mini wok. We are a Chinese carriage after all!

Once we were back on the move I decided to go and explore the train in search of the restaurant carriage. It’s about five cars behind mine in the Russian “sector” of the train. My top tip of the morning is to take gloves on such journeys – between each car in “no man’s land” the handles are frozen and also very sooty.

I wonder if you might guess as to how many travellers there are on this 15 carriage international express train? So far I have counted four of us.. I am in fact the only passenger in my first class carriage, and Stephan, a German (from Hamburg) has carriage no. 10 all to himself as well. We think there is an Italian woman in second class somewhere, and possibly a British train spotter further forward, who I saw taking on provisions this morning at Kirov. I know we are out of season, but I never expected it to be this quiet.. Unless the locals are all going to pile in further along the line? What do they know that we don’t about a train through Siberia in late December I wonder?

I consulted the map this morning. I was quite surprised to see how much progress we have made overnight – 1194km, despite what I though was a much slower speed on this train. The ride is generally very comfortable, but once in a while a combination of breaking and accelerating causes a sort of train whiplash effect that could almost throw you out of bed – or cause you to spill your gin & tonic.. I’m calling this a “Crazy Ivan”.

Good news on the breakfast front – they have a menu with English translations and a chef (if I can call him that) who makes ham and eggs with reasonable filter coffee for 330 roubles (about £7). I might try some dinner there later on..

The blockage of my shower drain is now occupying many of the Chinese crew – there are buckets of hot water, assorted spanners and mops next door – I hope they manage to fix it.

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I had high hopes for this trip, and they were met in every respect – it is a truly amazing place to visit if you have a passing interest in Cold War aviation. If you happen to be a aircraft anorak you would find this place pant wettingly exciting. There are planes here that you cannot see anywhere else in the world, and in fact that were a total secret until the late 1990’s.

I hired a local guide (Natalia) as well as Alexei again (my Moscow guide) as my interpreter – together with the car and the permissions to visit it must have cost me 15000 Roubles (£300), but money very well spent..

Sadly I have too many pictures to post here, but just a few to wet your appetite for now..

I will start with the M-50 strategic missile carrier (Bounder) – perhaps the most amazing and space age of planes I have ever seen…and it’s huge. This is a plane form the late 1950s!

Aircraft 105 was a test bed for high altitude (edge of space) research – I think it’s just incredible.. and it lands on skis!

The TU-144 (Charger or “Concordski”)..

The TU – 22 Bomber (Blinder) – that’s me under the front nose gear for scale!

More helicopters here than I have ever seen before (two fields of them), mainly MIL..

Finally for now, the SU – 27 Interceptor (Flanker)

I spent around three hours here – were it not for the temperature I could happily have spent three days. The staff seemed really pleased to look after me knowing I had come so far, and they even opened up an area that was officially off limits. A very special place to visit.

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Distance covered so far – 1900 km, GMT +1, -5 C, cloudy.

Well that was quite interesting. The Amsterdam train was two hours late into Warsaw but they had held the Moscow train for our arrival. I didn’t see them switch any carriages but they might have done – Amsterdam to Minsk & Basel to Moscow carriages both travel this route. My carriage attendant, who was doing a first class job with little English, gave me a voucher – apparently PKP actually financially compensate passengers when they are this late. It’ll never catch on in the United Kingdom!

When I got to the new train (on the very next platform) my heart sank a bit as I had apparently drawn the short straw – carriage 354 has not yet been restored like the others on this train, so has the shabby chic look and feel inside of a cold war submarine.

Anyway, its not all about the latest rolling stock. On arrival on board I met my first Provodnitsa of the trip – pretty casually dressed and very helpful, despite the fact we don’t have a word in common. I think she’s keeping an eye on me in case I get led astray by the other Russians on board!

A bizarre thing happened next. The really friendly waiter from the EN447 (which terminated in Warsaw) got on board my new train and served me pork schnitzel, potatoes and sauerkraut together with a bottle of local beer. How’s that for service and enterprise?

The set up on this train is quite different and so is the atmosphere. I had heard about the dress code – shorts and flip flops would be on the smart end of the scale in first class. I haven’t visited third class on this train, so I don’t know what they choose to wear (if anything). A lot of people leave the compartment doors open, play music and seem quite social in my carriage. It’s actually a nice feel and just what I had hoped for. But I do have to say that it feels inherently wrong wearing a pair of shorts when outside it’s well below freezing. I must remember to change before getting off!

There is no restaurant car on this train, but vitally the Provodnitsa’s compartment has a samovar providing an endless supply of boiling water. In keeping with the submarine feel she also seems to have a lot of buttons and communications stuff.. maybe an Enigma machine too?!

There seem to be at least three officials at work in my carriage. I hear them mention my UK passport from time to time, so I hope I’m not going to be singled out for special treatment at the border with Belarus.

I went for a look at the far end of the carriage, and we have a small snow drift inside the outer part of car. It’s really dry and powdery and seems to get in anywhere there is a gap. No wonder the windows are sealed shut.

I’ve got my feet up right now and the Provodnitsa has just served me tea – quite in keeping with the “Hunt For Red October” feel here in my Captain’s cabin!

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