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Sounds like the holiday travel of a lifetime! My longest-ever holiday trip was three weeks...

Would I have the money and free time, this would be my dream itinerary in China:

I picked only routes I know to be worth a day trip for the scenery. About a quarter of it is high-speed, the rest conventional lines. Other than major cities and archaeological sites, it could include detours to all of the Five Great Mountains, two of Buddhism's and three of Taoism's Four Sacred Mountains. I estimate that with the stops at the scenic sites, it would take me at least six weeks to complete... maybe when I'm retired :-)

*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.

by DoDo on Tue Mar 4th, 2014 at 09:27:34 AM EST
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This is sort-of off-topic, but Helmut Uttenthaler, who went by rail from Vienna to Pyongyang in 2008, returned to North Korea last year on a railfan-oriented guided tour and has started to write up the trip.

Part 1: Introduction

Part 2: Vienna - Beijing - Dandong

Part 3: "our special train"

There are lots of interesting photos, ranging from decrepid freight wagons to a mysterious unnumbered carriage in the charter train, which has tinted windows and might have been taken from Kim Jong Il's private train.

by Gag Halfrunt on Wed Mar 5th, 2014 at 11:38:47 AM EST
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Many thanks for the links to the sequel! (And I see it was you who led me to the 2008 one.) The first couple of photos in the third diary, with the contrast between the booming Chinese border town and the desolate North Korean amusement park, are quite symbolic.

In the first diary, I find this strange animal – a Soviet M62 diesel-electric loco rebuilt as electric:

decrepid freight wagons

Huh, decrepit is an understatement... with this much corrosion, they should have wagons breaking apart mid-train!

*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.

by DoDo on Wed Mar 5th, 2014 at 02:11:17 PM EST
[ Parent ]
They've also converted former Pyongyang Metro trains to overhead power for mainline use -- and ex-Pyongyang Metro, ex-Berlin U-Bahn trains too.

I see that Wikipedia now has a detailed list of North Korean locomotive types, with citations to a Japanese book about North Korean railways. The converted M62s are called the Kanghaenggun (Forced March) class.

by Gag Halfrunt on Wed Mar 5th, 2014 at 03:47:28 PM EST
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