[marukokinno]

I have been living in China for 6 years and last time I counted, I had already 1250 hours of travel time in Chinese trains. You can go to Lhasa, on the Himalaya, from Beijing by train. A friend of mine is going to Moscow from Beijing next week. My hours are increasing slower, now that high-speed trains are popping everywhere. Most high-speed are new paths, so little villages in middle of nowhere that had nothing, now suddenly have stunning modern mini Train Stations with High-speed trains (300 km/h cruising speed) stopping there. It's amazing. Many people say , in my home country Brazil, where trains are virtually non-existent, that a main reason our previous governments didn't build tracks was the lobby of Big Truck makers and Big Oil, that profit from all the transport being made by roads.

[seanmcdirmid]

These little villages in the middle of nowhere typically have 1+ million people my wife's hometown, chenzhou Hunan, is connected on the Guangzhou-Changsha line. It's a small town by Chinese standards but would be huge by American standards. They are even getting a Starbucks soon...times are changing quickly.

[vl]

Given that Transsib is not HSR, Beijing-Moscow is going to take around 7 days by train. It's not a pleasant trip. Especially compared to 7-8 hours by plane.