# MISC | Ten Longest Continuous Rail Journeys on Earth.



## Yardmaster (Jun 1, 2004)

(walking from platform to platform accepted)

My guess for the longest is Thurso or Wick to Ho Chi Minh City ....


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## Yardmaster (Jun 1, 2004)

Although you might hitch longer journeys on freight trains, I believe the longest journey you could make in my country is one of 7,351 kilometres, between Mt. Isa, Queensland, and Bunbury, Western Australia, via, Townsville, Brisbane, SYdney, Broken Hill, Port Augusta and Perth.

It's actually a bit longer than that since I've used the highway distances between Mt. Isa & Townsville.


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## DiggerD21 (Apr 22, 2004)

Do you speak of a single journey without changing trains?


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## SM247 (Dec 5, 2006)

That isn't a single journey - it utilises (I am guessing)
- The Inlander (QR Traveltrain) to Townsville
- Cairns Tilt Train or The Sunlander/Queensland Class (QR TravelTrain) to Brisbane
- Brisbane XPT (CountryLink) to Sydney
- Indian Pacific (Great Southern Railway) to Perth via Adelaide
- The Australind (TransWA) to Bunbury

You could make it even longer by travelling on the Melbourn XPT and the Overland between Sydney and Adelaide.

The longest single journey in Australia is the I-Pac, about 4300-4400km from Sydney to Perth and involves the longest completely flat and straight stretch of track in the world, about 500km in length on the Nullarbor Plain.

Tha Ghan is about 3000km in length between Adelaide and Darwin.

Other long journeys are the various CountryLink and QR coastal routes, most of which would be at or exceed 1,000km.


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## Yardmaster (Jun 1, 2004)

SM247 said:


> That isn't a single journey - it utilises (I am guessing)
> - The Inlander (QR Traveltrain) to Townsville
> - Cairns Tilt Train or The Sunlander/Queensland Class (QR TravelTrain) to Brisbane
> - Brisbane XPT (CountryLink) to Sydney
> ...


well, I was thinking of the longest journey- by the shortest route- with as many changes as necessary. To get from Thurso Scotland to Ho Chi Minh City Vietnam I'd guess I'd have to change trains in Edinburgh, London maybe, Paris, 
Moscow, Beijing and Hanoi at least.


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## earthJoker (Dec 15, 2004)

It seems there is nor rail track through the Sinai Peninsula, so prolly from western europe to eastern asia is the longest continous rail journey. Maybe they should build that connection so one can travel from Cape Town to Vladivostok.


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## sweek (Jan 30, 2006)

Longest single journey you'll find in the Netherlands is Heerlen to Schagen, at 274 km using roadway distances.
Obviously that's no where near the longest journey you can make on a single train.

According to Wikipedia's Trains-Siberian Railway article:

The main route, the Trans-Siberian, runs from Moscow to Vladivostok via southern Siberia and was built between 1891 and 1916. It is often associated with the main Russian train that connects these two cities. At 9,288 kilometres (5,772 miles), spanning 8 time zones and taking about 7 days to complete its journey, it is the third longest single continuous service in the world, after the Donetsk-Vladivostok and Moscow-Pyongyang services, both of which follow the Trans-Siberian.


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## Küsel (Sep 16, 2004)

I would go for the Transsib - but probably it's only for touristic traffic as the one through Canada.


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## earthJoker (Dec 15, 2004)

The transsib is not only for touristic traffic, if that's what you wanne say Kuesel.


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## Yardmaster (Jun 1, 2004)

OK, this is what I was thinking here ... suppose you grabbed a little railway trolley and went as far as you possibly could down the line ... how far could you go? you're allowed to switch axles at a break of gauge. You can also shift your trolley from one track to an adjoining track. 

My guess:


Thurso (Scotland) to Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) Vietnam ... at least 15,000 km
Mt. Isa Queensland to Geraldton Western Australia: close to 8,000 km
Hay River Canada to Tizimin (via Merida), Yucatan, Mexico. Maybe further, probably not.
Capetown, South Africa, to Mahagi Port, Lake Albert, Uganda.
Maraba, Para, Brazil, to Esquel, Chubut, Patagonia, Argentina.
Chittagong, Bangladesh, to Zahedran, Iran. (it seems that this will be connected through Kurzan and Tehran to Scutari, Turkey ... and through Russia to Thurso, Scotland!)

unfortunately, accurate measurements are hard to come by ...


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## UD2 (Jan 21, 2006)

the Trains-Canada Raillink, 1 ticket, 1 train, 6400km (4000 miles).


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## Yardmaster (Jun 1, 2004)

UD2 said:


> the Trains-Canada Raillink, 1 ticket, 1 train, 6400km (4000 miles).


According to my rail atlas:

Capetown- Pretoria: 999 km
New Delhi-Mumbai: 1384 km
Chicago- Los Angeles: 3577 km
Sydney- Perth: 3938 km
Montreal- Vancouver: 4680 km
Moscow-Vladlivostok "almost" 10,000 km

but see my comments above.


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## Bitxofo (Feb 3, 2005)

Inside Spain, the longest train journey is about 1,400 km. and it takes 10-12 hours.


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## UT596001 (Mar 29, 2005)

^^ ¿Estrella Galicia?


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## oz.fil (Jun 2, 2006)

does a subway loop count? it is a continuous journey :lol:


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## Tubeman (Sep 12, 2002)

oz.fil said:


> does a subway loop count? it is a continuous journey :lol:


Yeah I was going to be a smartarse and say London's Circle Line, but the fact it shuts down for 4 hours a night pisses on that claim... Oh well!


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## Bitxofo (Feb 3, 2005)

UT596001 said:


> ^^ ¿Estrella Galicia?


Estrella Galicia takes longer: 15 or 16 hours, but I think the distance is shorter: 1200-1300 kms.
:dunno:


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## Yardmaster (Jun 1, 2004)

Hmm ... perhaps my command of English is not what I thought it was.

Thurso Scotland to Ho Chi Minh City Vietnam ... the longest journey, versus travelling endlessly on a city subway loop? Hay River Canada to Merida Mexico? Mt Isa to Geraldton? Perhaps the term " longest" means something different to me.


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## Justme (Sep 11, 2002)

Yardmaster said:


> well, I was thinking of the longest journey- by the shortest route- with as many changes as necessary. To get from Thurso Scotland to Ho Chi Minh City Vietnam I'd guess I'd have to change trains in Edinburgh, London maybe, Paris,
> Moscow, Beijing and Hanoi at least.


You should play around with Germany's National Rail web site. Naturally, you would expect to be able to check train time tables in Germany, but their site is so good, you can almost pick any destination around the world you could get to "from Germany" by train.

Seriously. The site has an English page, so you can easily do your own searches, but keep in mind that German place names may differ from the English.

I done a quick search for tomorrow morning from Thurso, Scotland to Beijing (or Peking as the Germans still call it) and got this: Link

Travelling time 8.8days and 6 changes.

try starting at http://www.db.de/site/bahn/en/start.html this is the English page at www.db.de 

I'm sure with a bit of searching, you could find some distance longer. Also, keep in mind that www.db.de would probably try to find the shortest or quickest route. Of cause, you really good find a much longer one if you really wanted to ;O)


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## empersouf (Mar 19, 2004)

There used to be a single rail line from Lisboa to Hanoi!
So you could travel between Portugal and Vietnam without changing train.

And I think, in terms of this thread, you could hop on a train in Lulea, Sweden and end up in Hanoi Vietnam.....
That would be longer than Thorso-Hanoi I think?


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## [email protected] (May 7, 2007)

Tohoku Shinkansen, Tokaido Shinkansen, Sanyo Shinkansen, Kyushu Shinkansen are one route, but different in a company. The transfer is not necessary, too. By total, it is 1,771.51 kilometers.

Touhoku shinkansen 535.3km 
Toukaidou shinkansen 552.6km 
Sanyou shinkansen 553.7km 
Kyusyu shinkansen 129.970km 
total 1,771.51km 

-----------------------------------------------------------------


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## Yardmaster (Jun 1, 2004)

No-one seems to understand what this thread was originally about, so I'll give up too ...

Here's the longest (or 2nd longest) rail trip you can make by regularly scheduled passenger services in Australia: it's about 8,000 km.

6 am Wednesday: you get on the "Australind" in Bunbury, Western Australia.

8:30 am: you arrive at Perth, the WA Capital, 205 km north. Twiddle your fingers for a couple of hours ...

11:55 am: depart on the "Indian Pacific". A long haul, 4353 km. Three nights on the train before you arrive in Sydney, 10:15 am Saturday.

But they have a piano and a bar ... and a stopover, for an hour or two, wherever it's interesting. A really good trip.

16:20 Saturday: depart for Brisbane on the XPT. Your fourth night on the train!

6:30 am Sunday: arrive Roma Street Brisbane. Probably the sun is just rising. (I have actually done this bit myself). You have travelled about 5,500 km from your original station: there is a train leaving in just over two hours, but it won't connect to your eventual destination. Will you wait in Beautiful Brisbane, or jump on the train to Tropical Townsville, and do the same thing there? 
Either way, you spent 24 hours- and another night- on "The Queenslander". And two nights in a steamy Queensland den of vice. (Actually you could have spent this time in Sydney instead )


14:00 Thursday ... the Inlander pulls out for Mt. Isa, about 8,000 km from Bunbury by the most direct route

11:05 Friday: well here you are in Mt. Isa, 8000 km (my estimate is actually 7772) by rail from Bunbury, and six nights on four trains: and two in a cheap hotel. Actually you're rather closer to Bunbury than where you were four nights back ...

.


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## Bitxofo (Feb 3, 2005)

^^Not bad!
:eek2:


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## oberoende (Dec 2, 2007)

jkjkjk said:


> Using europan train timatable system (include parts of asia) i get these:
> 
> Vila Real Santo Antonio
> Faro(P)
> ...


From Narvik to Minsk is probably about the same distance as from Portugal to Minsk. However, this is assuming that there are no valid services between Boden and Haparanda. Therefore you have to take the long way around, via Stockholm, Copenhagen, Kolding, Hamburg, Berlin, Warsaw, Minsk.


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## Yardmaster (Jun 1, 2004)

oberoende said:


> From Narvik to Minsk is probably about the same distance as from Portugal to Minsk. However, this is assuming that there are no valid services between Boden and Haparanda. Therefore you have to take the long way around, via Stockholm, Copenhagen, Kolding, Hamburg, Berlin, Warsaw, Minsk.


But Bunbury to Mt Isa ... or Kunming to Thurso ... is far farther.


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## Joop20 (Jun 29, 2004)

Yardmaster said:


> But Bunbury to Mt Isa ... or Kunming to Thurso ... is far farther.


I think he was taking about the longest direct route to Minsk. From there on, the longest direct route is pretty obvious I guess. I wonder whether Norway, Scotland, or Portugal is the longest route to Minsk however.


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## sotavento (May 12, 2005)

Yardmaster said:


> (walking from platform to platform accepted)
> 
> My guess for the longest is Thurso or Wick to Ho Chi Minh City ....


Day1:
Vila Real de Santo Antonio - Faro > Regional train = 50km
Faro - Lisboa > "Alfa Pendular" = 300km
Lisboa - Hendaye > "Sud Express" night train = 1000km
or in alternative:
Lisboa - Porto > "Alfa Pendular" = 320km
Porto - Vigo > "international" = 170km
Vigo - Irun > "diurno" = 800km
>>> between 1350km and 1640km and we didn't even reached France. :cheers:

Day2:
Hendaye - Paris > TGV Atlantique = 750km


And from there in a straight line it's:

9500km to PUSAN 
10.750km to Singapore
10.200km to anywhere in Vietnam coast

^^ Take your pick and select a route acordingly ... 

We can add some soundabout intermediat stops like going all the way up to scandinavia or the middle east (?) 

:cheers:


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## sotavento (May 12, 2005)

empersouf said:


> There used to be a single rail line from Lisboa to Hanoi!
> So you could travel between Portugal and Vietnam without changing train.
> 
> And I think, in terms of this thread, you could hop on a train in Lulea, Sweden and end up in Hanoi Vietnam.....
> That would be longer than Thorso-Hanoi I think?





Yardmaster said:


> You could never do this without changing trains, but I sense we are talking about the same thing ... only using certain English words differently.
> 
> My guess is that Lagos, Portugal, id probably further from Hanoi by rail than Thurso, Scotland is. Narvik, norway, looks more distant than Lulea, Sweden, but you could take a short-cut through Finland and St. Petersberg.
> 
> ...




Routed From Vila real (south of portugal) via Lisboa , Madrid , Valencia , Barcelona , Lyon , Paris , Brussels , Amsterdam(?) , Hamburg , Copenhagen , Stockholm , Helsinki , S.Petersburg , Moscow and from there the "transsiberian" up to Vladivostock ... more than 16.000km. :cheers:

From Vladivostock one can go further south to Nothern Korea and then china and all the way to "southeast asa" increasing some thousand quilometers to the route ... 

Hanoi at 20.000km
Ho Chi Minh at 21.000km

There is a 200km gap between Phnom Penh and Ho chi Minh ... we could easily add some 2500km more. :bash:

Mianmar , Thailand Malaisia and Cambodja are not connected to the eastern networks so we end at Vietnam.

Any other possible follow up is easily reached by shorter routes. hno:

this of course bipasses the "direct" route from Moscow to southern China.

and Norway is near the "shortcut" of going by northen Sweden wich is actualy the "not" shortest route from western europe to Russia.


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## sotavento (May 12, 2005)

mgk920 said:


> The tough part regarding Russia's railroads is that the gauge difference between them (1520 mm) and 'standard' gauge (1435 mm) was set as such by the Czars to make it as difficult as possible for invading armies to use their railroads. The difference was large enough to prevent direct running between them but too small to allow laying a third rail to easily create dual-gauge track.
> 
> I'm interested in that item about Spain planning to regauge its track to standard gauge. Is there any set timeline for that?
> 
> ...


Portugal and spanish Gaudes were simply "imperial measures".

Portugal = 5 imerial feet
Spain = 6 pés castellanos 

^^ For a long period of time both countries had actualy a DIFEERENT gaude some few centimeters apart from one another but fully compatible to reciprocal rolingstock usage. 

Portuguese early network was actualy built at 1435mm and later changed to 1667mm (using the outside holes as the new inside holes in sleepers) ... spanish network was standardised at 1672mm ... later on both were changed to some loosely defined 1668mm.

the main reason for the gauge at 1,67m was to accomodate larger boilers in the locomotives (thus more powerfull) ... wich resulted in the construction of high gradient routes in places the early gauge would cause problems. :cheers: 

Argentina still uses 1672mm on some areas of their network. 



Yardmaster said:


> I would have thought Hanoi was further from Portugal than Vladivostok: further back in the thread, Norway & Scotland were also candidates for the western end of the trip.[/QUOT
> 
> The further one can get from Moscow in western europe is at "Vila Real de Santo Antonio" as the routes from there and Lagos join at a point more close to Lagos and then follow north to lisboa and entroncamernto (where the route to madrid diverges from the main line).
> 
> ...


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## Yardmaster (Jun 1, 2004)

^^ Using the figures from the Thomas Cook European Railway timetable I have just prepared a number of spider's web diagrams with a mass of distance figures: by my reckoning, Narvik is 2614 km by rail from Hamburg. One of things I'd like to clear up is the longest rail journey in Europe (accepting Moscow as the east boundary of Europe at this stage, but allowing Murmansk & Sebastopol). The distances are given in km.










There's about another 2000 km to get from Hamburg to Madrid, and quite a bit more after that .... or am I misreading the timetable? (mine is two years old).


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## Justme (Sep 11, 2002)

Look forward to your diagrams. Though the Ural Mountains are the defined as the Eastern Boundary of Europe by all accounts, not Moscow.


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## Yardmaster (Jun 1, 2004)

Justme said:


> Look forward to your diagrams. Though the Ural Mountains are the defined as the Eastern Boundary of Europe by all accounts, not Moscow.


Sorry, no timetables available here for that part of Europe!


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## sotavento (May 12, 2005)

Just got bored so I ended up drawing a PATH in google earth and remembered this topic:

Vila Real de Santo Antonio-Faro (in the algarve/portugal huelva/andalucia/spain border)
Faro-Tunes-Funcheira
Funcheira-Beja
Beja-Lisboa
Lisboa-Caldas-FigueiraFoz
FigueiraFoz-Cantanhede/Coimbra 
Coimbra-Porto _(notice that there are direct Faro-Porto HST AlfaPendular)_
Porto-Vigo _(using the international train)_
vigo-Corunha
Corunha-Ourense-Medina 
Medina-Salamanca-Guarda _(back into portugal using the SUDEXPRESSO in the oposite direction)_
Guarda-CasteloBranco-Abrantes
Abrantes-Caceres _(using the international talgo lusitania on it's way to madrid)_
Caceres-Merida-Huelva
Huelva-Sevilla-Antequera(?)-Cordoba-Puertollano-CuidadReal-Aranjuez(?)-Albacete-Murcia(?)-Valencia-Cuenca-Madrid 

That get's me some 3800/4000km already and I'm still in the middle of the iberic peninsula ...and I didn't even started to use the nortern narrow gauges nor the catalunha system. :cheers:

5600km to reach Barcelona (going by Valladolid-Oviedo-Zaragoza-Castellon-Lleida) and some 6200km to reach Biarritz ... :lol:


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## Yardmaster (Jun 1, 2004)

^^ Yeah, but I'm trying to find the shortest "longest" (that is the most direct longest) route between two places on the continent, or on the Earth, by rail. It may well be that Vila Real de Santa Antonio ends up at one end of this route ... I'm not tyrying to put down the Portuguese 

Since Europe has such a complex rail system, my idea was to define a central hub- not necessarily representing the most heavily trafficed or most important lines- in order to seperate the peripheral zones (or peninsulas!), to make it easier to establish the greatest extent of the system. The entire British system, for instance, can be connected to the hub at Lille, and the Scandanavian system at Hamburg (leaving aside the issue of the connection to Finland for the monent, which does not carry passenger traffic I am informed). As things stand, I believe Wick to be the furthest point by (passenger) rail in the UK, 1077 km from London, and 1344 km from Lille (my figures are probably out of date due to new trackwork). By my calculations (which may be wrong, but at least they come in components), that's 4576 rail-km from Wick to Narvik ... through Brussels, Aachen, Koln, Dortmund, & Hannover.I should be able to calculate the rail-km from Plymouth to Bergen pretty easily, too: they'll be about 900 km less on the Scandanavian end ... and a bit more than 700 km less at the UK end.

The Iberian, Italian, and Balkan Peninsulas are a little harder to analyze: I can probably reference the latter to Nis. But Spain's connections, both through Bordeaux and Barcelona, make things more complicated, as is the case in Italy. 

Hence while I can identify Lille, Hamburg, Nis and maybe Warsaw as nodes on the periphery of this Central European hub, it's not so easy in the south-west.


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## Jaroslaw (Mar 9, 2004)

Justme said:


> You should play around with Germany's National Rail web site. Naturally, you would expect to be able to check train time tables in Germany, but their site is so good, you can almost pick any destination around the world you could get to "from Germany" by train.
> 
> Seriously. The site has an English page, so you can easily do your own searches, but keep in mind that German place names may differ from the English.
> 
> ...


Your link doesn't work any more. Maybe you could copy and paste your results? 

I don't know where to go from your start link. Usually I just go to bahn.hafas.de, but it refuses to give me the option for Ho Chi Minh (or Hong Kong).


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## Justme (Sep 11, 2002)

^^

Just tried it again and it came up with this: (221 hours and 5 changes). If the link below doesn't work, just type in Thurso, Scotland to Peking at www.db.de


Link


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## CrazySerb (Aug 22, 2007)

Any way to travel between the two places without passing through Russia?


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## Jaroslaw (Mar 9, 2004)

Yes, through Iran. There is a service from Ankara to Teheran, I think (and the train goes on a ferry on lake Van), *but *there is no train line from Zahedan to Quetta. Out of Quetta to Lahore there is a beautiful line through the mountains, with lots of tunnels and bridges, built a hundred years ago by the British.


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## sotavento (May 12, 2005)

Yardmaster said:


> ^^ Yeah, but I'm trying to find the shortest "longest" (that is the most direct longest) route between two places on the continent, or on the Earth, by rail. It may well be that Vila Real de Santa Antonio ends up at one end of this route ... I'm not tyrying to put down the Portuguese
> 
> Since Europe has such a complex rail system, my idea was to define a central hub- not necessarily representing the most heavily trafficed or most important lines- in order to seperate the peripheral zones (or peninsulas!), to make it easier to establish the greatest extent of the system. The entire British system, for instance, can be connected to the hub at Lille, and the Scandanavian system at Hamburg (leaving aside the issue of the connection to Finland for the monent, which does not carry passenger traffic I am informed). As things stand, I believe Wick to be the furthest point by (passenger) rail in the UK, 1077 km from London, and 1344 km from Lille (my figures are probably out of date due to new trackwork). By my calculations (which may be wrong, but at least they come in components), that's 4576 rail-km from Wick to Narvik ... through Brussels, Aachen, Koln, Dortmund, & Hannover.I should be able to calculate the rail-km from Plymouth to Bergen pretty easily, too: they'll be about 900 km less on the Scandanavian end ... and a bit more than 700 km less at the UK end.
> 
> ...


^^ I don't care If you try to put down or not some forsaken place ... not at all 

I just started counting trips after trips and see what one could get using a chain of connections ... 

there are some thousands of possible ways to travel direct using a small amount of interchanges ... but only in europe can you go rollercoaster stile and not cross your previous course. :lol:


the fastest way to get out of here would be:

VRSA-Faro = regional
Faro-Lisboa = Alfa Pendular (FIAT Pendolino tilting train) or InterCity 
Lisboa-Irun = Sud express
Irun-Paris = morning TGV 

Leave at mid-day and arrive in Paris before lunch of next day ... hno:


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## Yardmaster (Jun 1, 2004)

Justme said:


> Look forward to your diagrams. Though the Ural Mountains are the defined as the Eastern Boundary of Europe by all accounts, not Moscow.


I'll get back to this ... but other commitments keep me off-line for the next few weeks. Happy New Year!


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