I travel from Portugal to Singapore via trains and I wouldn't have survived without this site.
Nice, what was your first trip, the Lusitania?
The Man in Seat Sixty-One
61–70 of 124 posts
Re: The Man in Seat Sixty-One
#62Can we please have more sites like this on the internet.
I kinda want one of these directory websites you could find in the early 2000s that were just collections of websites the author liked. I want a page like that just filled with links to pushed like this. projectrho.com comes to mind as another page I would want to see liked there.
Rather than a website with one person tasked with maintaining it, what about a git site where people can do a pull request for updates?
Re: The Man in Seat Sixty-One
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
Doubly painful, now that people are once again more open to the use of a sleeper train to avoid flying (for environmental reasons, or just not having to deal with airports). ÖBB took over Deutsche Bahn's sleepers, which coincided with the retiring of the last sleeper train from/to the Netherlands (bugger me). But their service does seem to be working pretty well. I missed an opportunity to travel from Milan to Paris…
> I really wish the EU or collaborating national governments would invest more in sleeper train services by taxing flights. Why? If sleepers are so desirable, then the market should support them.
Because flights have co2 externalities that trains don't to the same extent. This is econ 101.
Re: The Man in Seat Sixty-One
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
Whoa, how do you get from Europe to Singapore by train?
Russia -> Mongolia -> China -> Vietnam -> Cambodia (he might have cheated here and gone by bus, Cambodia does have trains but they're not really available for passengers anymore I don't think) -> Thailand -> Malaysia -> Singapore
Cambodia has trains now. Started a few years ago, from Phnom Penh to Sihanoukville. There is also a new train line to the Thai border that I think opened recently but it doesn’t connect to the Thai railway.
Re: The Man in Seat Sixty-One
#65This guy posts some really unique information -- I used his site back in 2012 when I first visited Myanmar after the end of sanctions. His site had a full train timetable, cabin descriptions and a guide for buying tickets (accurate, none the less) when there was basically zero other information out there. Took the train from Yangon to Mandalay, and it was definitely an experience! Also, more recently, the Norther Exp…
I like that New Zeland trains feature in the same category as ones in Myanmar. Over here in New Zealand we have gone to quite a lot of effort to make a system this bad.
hah! Sorry if it came across that way, obviously those are two very different categories of train -- they do fall under equally scenic IMO but that's where the similarities end.
Re: The Man in Seat Sixty-One
#66This website is one of my favorite resources for traveling. I travel in Europe quite often and I always visit this website when I need tips on how to get from point A to point B. I just used it a few weeks ago to figure out how to take the train from Krakow to Warsaw.
Re: The Man in Seat Sixty-One
#67Agree with all commenters here what a fantastic site this is - up-to-date (by and large), information dense, no nonsense. Has helped me travel from Bali to Jakarta, through Thailand, Namibia, and with the TransSib. A labour of love. So I wondered how one can support the guy, and was amazed that the only thing he asks for is donations to UNICEF in his name, see link below. Kudos kudos kudos. https://www.justgiving.com…
I thought the site doesn't support Russia?
Re: The Man in Seat Sixty-One
#68Love the site and used it often. Recently I realized train is my preferred mean of transportation by far and I'm happy to be able to count on this site. Also a strong reminder of what the internet could be.
In the best case train is like being driven in a Limo on a free interstate
The normal case is far better than that. Smoother, faster, you can’t get up and stretch your legs, walk to a shop (or have the shop come to you in many cases), plug in your laptop, no bouncing up and down, no car sickness when you’re reading
Re: The Man in Seat Sixty-One
#69Wow great site. Rad for 1 hour ...
Re: The Man in Seat Sixty-One
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
Russia -> Mongolia -> China -> Vietnam -> Cambodia (he might have cheated here and gone by bus, Cambodia does have trains but they're not really available for passengers anymore I don't think) -> Thailand -> Malaysia -> Singapore
Cambodia has trains now. Started a few years ago, from Phnom Penh to Sihanoukville. There is also a new train line to the Thai border that I think opened recently but it doesn’t connect to the Thai railway.
There was always a line from Phnom Penh to Battambang but it was only a single line and I think there were only a couple trains a week on it. Early 2000's you could bribe your way onto it (or even on top of it...) but from what I recall it was extremely slow.
Interestingly since it was only used infrequently the locals knew when the big trains were coming and would basically build their own mini motorised platforms to zip up and down the line. Two sets of wheels on axles, a bamboo "raft" that sat on top of them with a hole towards the back where a motor ran a chain down to the back axle.
I rode on one circa 2008, because it was a single line, if you met someone coming the other way you basically had to disassemble the entire thing (which probably took less than a minute) and then re-assemble once they'd passed.