Train ride - around the world.

[Shed Cat]

I was reading today's newspaper about a (fantasy?) plan to dig a 65 mile rail tunnel between Russia and the USA under the Bering Striaght. What caught my imagination was the train trip that was sketched out in the paper:-

Mexico City, El Passo, Vancouver, Fairbanks, Anadyr, Magadan, Irkutsk, Omsk, Moscow and London.

But this is only the short trip.

Surely you would start at Cape Town and travel all the way up through Africa, Egypt, Iran (maybe not ) and up to Moscow. Then east through Russia, "the Bering Tunnel", Canada, USA, Mexico and down through South America finishing at Buenos Aires, maybe.

That would be an trip and a half..........

Wonder if you could get an Interrail ticket?

[DSY011]

You would have a hard time getting a train that runs in Zimbabwe or across the Sudan, but if it was possible! What a trip.
Syd

[locojoe]

I bet the ticket would be expensive it costs a bomb just for a short journey in UK. Does anyone know which counrty has the cheapest rail fares.
Alan Locojoe.

[Shed Cat]

Originally Posted by DSY011

You would have a hard time getting a train that runs in Zimbabwe or across the Sudan, but if it was possible! What a trip.
Syd

I suppose that was partly behind my post. Could a single (special mixed gauge) train physically travel from one end of Africa to the other? My school atlas does show a few gaps. It looks like you can get from Cape Town to Uganda OK, then you are a bit stuck and have a 500 mile walk to the next rail-head in the Sudan.

I suppose you would have to ignore in the theoretical planning the effect of politics or any war-zones:- unless they have actually torn up the tracks. (Although, from Michael Palin's documentries, politics and permissions are everything.)

The Peruvian and Columbian railways dont look very interconnected either, so South America could be a challenge too.

Maybe the original newspaper article was correct. Mexico to Western Europe is all (!) you could do in one train trip.

[Shed Cat]

Originally Posted by locojoe

I bet the ticket would be expensive it costs a bomb just for a short journey in UK. Does anyone know which counrty has the cheapest rail fares.
Alan Locojoe.

I suppose cheepest is relative. A train ticket only costs a few pence (or equivalent) in some parts of the third world. But that would still be a week's wages for the average labourer.