The joy of train travel: From New Zealand to London
By Robert Greenall
BBC News
International train travel has always had a romantic appeal, whether it's nostalgia for the age of steam, the thrill of a scenic mountain railway, or just the pleasure of watching the world go by and making friends with fellow travellers.
For longer journeys, most travellers nowadays shun rail in favour of air - few want to spend 36 hours on a journey that can be done in four.
But there are still plenty of good reasons to go by train. The joy of "slow travel" is that you see how the landscape changes - plus, you avoid the enormous carbon emissions that flying entails.
This year, I spent more than two months on a trip from Wellington, New Zealand to London, UK. I took only two short flights over water, and almost all of my overland journeys were by rail.
From my railway carriage, I saw the Australian outback, the slums of Bangkok, the stunning coastline of central Vietnam, the mountains of China's Gansu province (sandwiched between Mongolia and the Tibetan plateau) the Kara-Kum desert of Central Asia, Georgia's decaying rural towns and the hills of eastern Turkey.
What was most striking was how varied these experiences were - a million miles from the uniformity of air travel.
Steam on Sunday
In Australia and New Zealand, a journey by long-distance train is something like a tour bus, with quirky announcements along the way and even stops for sightseeing.
"Great Southern Railway can boast some of the finest staff in the business. Unfortunately none of them are on this train," quipped the guard on the Overland from Melbourne to Adelaide.
Just as well they have a sense of humour - this day's travel across endless flat agricultural land is probably one of the most boring railway journeys on earth.
The twice-weekly Ghan, between Adelaide and Darwin, is not quite so mind-numbing. It has two four-hour stops for sightseeing in Alice Springs and the Katherine Gorge, to break up the hours of semi-desert in between.
New Zealand's long-distance trains are also infrequent, and often slow. There are just three trains per week in winter between the two main cities, Wellington and Auckland.
Sometimes part of the Sunday service is replaced by a steam train - great for enthusiasts, but not helpful for time-challenged business travellers.
That said, it's one of the world's great scenic journeys, with views on a good day over the North Island Volcanic Plateau, one of the dramatic locations used in the Lord of the Rings films.
Chinese rail journeys could not be more different. They usually involve huge numbers of people being moved around over huge distances as often and in as short a time as possible. Queuing for tickets can be a nightmare, and there's always a danger of overcrowding.
I tried to book sleeper tickets from Beijing to the western city of Urumqi 10 days before departure, but they had already sold out, so I was forced to sit in a non-reclining seat for the whole 40-hour journey.
For the first 24 hours, the carriage was so packed that people were sleeping in the aisles and even on the wash-basins at the end.
On the second night, I managed to grab a couple of hours' kip by lying under the table next to my seat.
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