Mongolia - Branch lines and desert Gobi - Tour has been confirmed
The Mongolian railways also run at night: with freight and passenger trains they keep the Transmongol line busy around the clock!
Two very different passenger trains are waiting to continue their journey at Darkhan station during the night: the 2ZAGAL has a long passenger train to Ulan Bator on the hook, the coal ovens in the passenger cars provide the heating during this cold winter night.
With only one passenger car the mixed train from Sharin Gol is a bit short this night and waits now for the night train to the Mongolian capital, at which the through coach will be shunted to. The 2M62 will then be off duty and will return to Sharin Gol the next morning only.
Also the Mongolian main line, the Transmongol, shall be visited by us. While on our photo a southbound freight train with a 2TE116UM diesel has just left Ulan Bator and heads to the Chinese border, we will wait for more trains about 500 kilometres further south: we photograph the trains at the Gobi desert - the most demanding and technically most difficult part of the Transmongol: glowing heat in summer, bitter cold in winter, even on normal days sometimes temperature differences of 25 degrees. In addition, there are sandstorms and the steepest gradient in the Mongolian railway network. The locomotives used here in the desert are pushed to their limits because, to make matters worse, the transport volume of the railways has increased and more and more tonnage has to be transported between Russia and China.
We still have places on all three parts of our tour: the isolated branch line near Choibalsan in the far north-east of the country, the Gobi Desert, and the secondary lines.
With Miat, the Mongolian airline, or Air China, you also fly to Mongolia quite inexpensively on selected days - and some nationalities do not even need a visa to enter the country!
All details and the booking form for the tour can be found here.