Train journey from Saigon to Scotland
via Hanoi · Beijing · Pyongyang · Siberia · Moscow · Berlin · London
20,406 km
15 September 2018
My train journey started with a rubbish fight on the airplane.
The 5-year-old Vietnamese girl in the seat in front tore pieces from the air sickness bag and used the remaining half as a hat. Pieces of air sickness bag rained down on my row as she flung them backwards on ballistic trajectories and played peek-a-boo between the headrests on the Scoot A320.
The Mum next to her had given up long ago and slumped exhausted in her seat. The polite Singaporean men on my left and right, who had planned to catch some sleep on the early morning flight, feigned sleep.
During landing, the girl and the boy next to her (presumably her brother) said “ahhhhhhhhh...” slowly dropping in pitch to as low as their kid's vocal cords would go as the plane braked on the runway.
“Welcome to Tan Son Nhat International Airport,” crackled the flight attendant.
I walked out of the terminal past a bright yellow bus which identified it as an overpriced (by more than 10 times) tourist trap, and got yelled at by the driver for pretending he didn’t exist.
The bus behind it was painted an inconspicuous pastel blue. There was a kind plump lady inside who took my 50,000-đồng note and gave me 48,500 back for the five-cent ride downtown.
Soon after getting on, the blue sky quickly turned grey and a tropical squall blew in and lashed at the windows. I lounged back in the cushioned seat, feeling the cool air-con on my face. V-pop thumped out of the speakers as the driver worked his brake and accelerator in quick alternation through the slow river of sedan cars, SUVs, motorcycles and other buses, accompanied by cacophonic tooting.
The cubicle in the public toilet at Bến Thành Market was dark as it did not have its own light. I bent forward for a closer look at a dark hole in the wall. I could only see the black outlines of about 10 supersized cockroaches. They were sitting still just now. Imagine giving them a poke, sending them helter-skelter in all directions!
Conducting a Saigon symphony on the Cách mạng tháng Tám, a major transportation axis named after the August Revolution of 1945.
“Hột vịt lộn, hột vịt lộn”, I was almost shouting in excitement as I bore down on the man with the motorcycle food cart by the roadside. I showed him two fingers. He eyeballed me with apprehension for a few seconds, then his standard operating procedure kicked in.
He lifted the lid on a large pot to reveal steaming hot fertilized duck eggs with white shells. My eyes widened at the sight of the Vietnamese delicacy from the cradle of nature.
He reached for a plastic bag, picked out two eggs and put them in the bag. In went a small plastic saucer, a Vinamilk-branded little plastic spatula, and a presealed plastic sleeve containing a mixture of crushed chilli padi and salt. He took a fresh calamansi, sliced off the top with a small knife and threw it in. Finally he stuffed in a wad of fresh Vietnamese coriander, Persicaria odorata.
He gestured 7,000 đồng, I gave him the notes, he gave me the eggs and we parted ways.
I had one mission to accomplish before sunset: make a pilgrimage to the apartment block at 22 Lý Tự Trọng.
It was sandwiched between 21 and 23, but I couldn’t see it at first. All I saw was a jumble of windows and grills in the colours and designs of ten different buildings, until my eyes caught the thin concrete slabs that partitioned—and unified—them in an architectural grid that made up the building’s façade.
It seemed that the main tenants were a construction firm called Vinaincon and a chemical engineering company called CECO. But many years ago, it housed, among others, the deputy chief of station of the US Central Intelligence Agency. His tenure came to an end in 1975, when helicopters perched precariously atop the lift shaft to evacuate desperate US government employees as North Vietnamese troops closed in on Saigon.
The iconic photograph taken by Hubert van Es on 29 April 1975.
The attendant said I could go up for 50,000 đồng. That was about the price of two bowls of phở. I quickly gave him the money, we exchanged thanks and he left the building to me.
I entered the lift and rose smoothly and silently, directly beneath the helicopters of 1975. This place had escaped the kind of “restoration” that turned historical landmarks into beehives of tourist infestation.
The ninth floor was deserted except for a pair of doves, which got spooked and took off flapping loudly as the lift door opened. Part of it was al fresco and lined with potted plants. I climbed a ladder and stood on the roof, alone on the top of the building that, to me, truly symbolized the struggles of Vietnam. Tourists frolicked in front of the Notre Dame cathedral far below in the distance, indulging in selfies and wefies. Thankfully, they were completely out of earshot.
After an hour of peace, I got up to go. Like the war refugees in 1975, I had to leave Saigon tonight.
North-South Railway (French-built in 1936, reopened 1976, single track)
Track gauge: 1000 mm
🚂 Sài Gòn 0km (Reunification Express)
Saigon railway station.
The platform was dimly lit with fluorescent tubes, which cast a ghostly white haze on the starboard side of the blue and red coaches lined up a hundred metres into the distance. The drone of diesel engines filled the humid tropical night.
The windows, lit with incandescent warmth, beckoned. I showed my ticket, hauled myself and my rucksack up the steel foot plates and retreated into a hushed world of cosy berths and soft cushions.
At 9.55 p.m., the tranquility was dispelled with a blast of the air horn—two simultaneous notes a perfect fourth plus a microtone apart, imparting to the ancient Gregorian musical interval a sense of tension and anticipation. From inside the train, it sounded like Mahler’s offstage trombones, and it heralded the beginning of the Odyssey of Steel.
I felt a nudge, and the coach eased into a gentle rocking motion. The platform lights slid past the window one by one, and finally gave way to the dark night beyond.
🚂 Biên Hòa
16 September 2018
🚂 Bình Thuận 175km
🚂 Tháp Chàm
🚂 Nha Trang 411km
🚂 Tuy Hòa
🚂 Diêu Trì 630km
A hint of Cubism.
🚂 Quảng Ngãi 798km
🚂 Tam Kỳ
🚂 Đà Nẵng 935km (French invasion, 1858)
🚂 Huế 1038km (imperial capital)
🚂 Đông Hà
🚂 Đồng Hới 1204km
It was 9pm. We were now passing the dark outlines of sheer limestone cliffs towering hundreds of feet over the track. The overcast sky flickered with distant lightning, and moonlight seeped through patches of thinner cloud. The lights in my compartment were off. When the train entered a tunnel, the glow from the next compartment lit up the wall of the tunnel and I imagined myself on a journey to the centre of the Earth.
🚂 Đồng Lê
My favourite picks from the train’s food cart were the freshly steamed ears of corn with kernels in a hundred shades of yellow, red and brown, the protein-packed hột vịt lộn, and the addictive Vietnamese cured pork sausage or nem chua fermented with herbs, garlic and chilli in banana leaves. But Second-Class long-distance train cuisine in Vietnam isn’t complete without instant noodles.
I’d picked up a selection of cup noodles in Saigon station, and tonight’s pick was Nissin 出前一丁 Sesame Oil Flavour.
The flow rate of my salivary glands quickened as I performed the ritual of tearing open the sachets of powdered MSG and dried condiments, dispensing the boiling, bubbling water up to the dotted line, letting it steep as my G-Shock ticked off three minutes, and drizzling the sesame oil from its sachet onto the broth where it formed fragrant golden globules on the surface.
As the noodles cooked, the printed design on the cup made me even hungrier with a red-and-pink checked tablecloth pattern and a cartoon drawing of the manufacturer’s cheerful freckled mascot in a bright blue kimono and yellow scarf with chopsticks and a bowl of noodles.
As I slurped the springy, curly strands, they bathed my excited taste buds with an intoxicating blend of monosodium glutamate and aromatic sesame oil that no Michelin chef could match.
🚂 Huong Pho
🚂 Vinh 1407km
17 September 2018
🚂 Thanh Hóa 1550km
🚂 Ninh Bình 1611km
🚂 Nam Định
🚂 Phủ Lý
🚂 Hà Nội 1726km
Drivers conducting the pre-departure checklist in a Chinese-built D19E (120 km/h) bound for Saigon. They served the author a glass of strong Vietnamese tea. In 2015, one of these locomotives was pulling the Hanoi–Saigon service when it struck a lorry on a level crossing in what has become known as the Dien Sanh train crash.
The track between Hà Nội and Long Biên.
A trio of hens browsed offerings of food scraps on a wooden pallet on the sleepers between the rails, making soft clucks of contentment. One of them checked out the salad bar of weeds growing amongst the stones of the railway bed. She picked out a slender green shoot and ingested it inch by inch like a strand of spaghetti, with gentle waves of contraction of her throat muscles, until it disappeared down her gut. She stood on the rail, wiped her beak on it, pooed and stretched her wings.
Then two of them started a jazzy duet of cluuuuuck-cluck-cluck-cluck sounding like a 嗩吶, a very nasal Chinese oboe. Presently, a rooster several households up the track joined in with an antiphonal cockadoodledo chorus with the females. Alas, it seemed stuck in a cage on the second floor, like an upside-down Romeo and Juliet.
D12E diesel-electric locomotive with a cute grandfather moustache and snorting like a friendly monster.
Vietnamese motorcyclists use their horns liberally. The horn control is a rectangular button on the handlebar beneath the left thumb. They touch and let go, or press and hold, or press repeatedly, depending on their mood and the nature of the emergency. They horn—actually it sounds more like a toot—to alert you to their presence, to protest your cutting into their path, or to make you get out of the way. Even as they are horning you, they cast a meditative gaze, they sit perfectly straight and their hands grasp the handlebars symmetrically, like bodhisattvas.
Crossing the Cầu Long Biên (1902), an iron cantilever bridge designed by Daydé & Pillé (Paris). The bridge was a strategic axis heavily bombarded during the Vietnam War.
Track gauge: 1435 mm
🚂 Gia Lâm
🚂 Bắc Giang
🚂 Đồng Đăng (Vietnamese border)
🚂 Pingxiang (Chinese border)
🚂 Ningming
🚂 Chongzuo
🚂 Nanning 2035km (train Z6)
🚂 Nanning East
🚂 Liuzhou
🚂 Guilin
🚂 Hengyang
🚂 Changsha
🚂 Wuchang
🚂 Zhengzhou
Home of the world's largest iPhone factory.
🚂 Shijiazhuang 4249km
20 September 2018
🚂 Beijing West 4530km
Firewood for Peking roast duck.
Yuan dynasty urban design survives in central Beijing, where a man runs a provision shop in one of the traditional courtyard houses lining an alley or hutong (胡同).
🚂 Beijing 北京站
In the 1960s, Red Guards from all over China arrived at Beijing station in great numbers, on pilgrimage to catch a glimpse of Chairman Mao Zedong (Jung Chang, Wild Swans).
🚂 Tianjin 4667km
🚂 Tangshan 4784km
🚂 Shanhaiguan 4907km
🚂 Jinzhou 5029km
🚂 Shenyang 5423km
🚂 Benxi 5517km
🚂 Fenghuangcheng 5590km
🚂 Dandong 5650km (Chinese border)
P'yŏngŭi Line
🚂 Sinuiju 5652km (Korean border)
In 2004, a freight train carrying explosive cargo detonated at Ryongchŏn station along this line, hours after Kim Jong Il's train had passed through on his return from Beijing. The massive blast reportedly destroyed thousands of buildings and killed more than a thousand people. Some believe it was an assassination attempt. Others believe it was an accident triggered by contact with a power cable during shunting. According to Israel's Mossad, one of the wagons held weapons-grade plutonium accompanied by Syrian officials. Lead coffins were later seen being loaded on a Syrian military plane.
🚂 Dongrim 5700km
🚂 Jongiu 5755km
Closest approach to the Yongbyon Nuclear Scientific Research Centre (approximately 25 km)
23 September 2018
🚂 Pyongyang 평양 5879km
In 2001, Kim Jong Il traveled from Pyongyang to Moscow by train to meet Russian president Vladimir Putin.
In 2017, after being called the “Little Rocket Man” by President Trump, Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un launched an intercontinental ballistic missile that could reach the United States. Trump threatened “fire and fury … the likes of which this world has never seen before.” Kim started off 2018 with a warning that the nuclear button was on his desk at all times, to which Trump tweeted, “Will someone … please inform him that I too have a Nuclear Button, but it is a much bigger & more powerful one than his, and my Button works!” Later, Kim told Pompeo that North Korea had come “very close” to war.
The 105-storey Ryugyong Hotel.
Pyongyang Metro.
On my last night in Pyongyang, I had the fortune of being bitten by a North Korean mosquito in the Koryo Hotel.
P'yŏngra Line
🚂 West Pyongyang 5884km
🚂 Sopo 5890km
🚂 Tongbungri 5913km
🚂 Pyongsong 5923km
🚂 Sunchon 5945km
🚂 Sinchang 5965km
🚂 Sinsongchon 5982km
🚂 Sinyang 6003km
🚂 Yangdok 6022km
🚂 Soktang Onchon 6035km
🚂 Kocha 6044km
🚂 Ungok 6056km
🚂 Kowon 6111km
🚂 Chuso 6186km 18:10
🚂 Hamhung 6193km
Centre of production of Vinalon, the Juche fibre.
🚂 Majon 6215km
🚂 Sinjung 6220km
🚂 Ryoho 6225km
🚂 Sepori 6234km
🚂 Hongwon 6255km
🚂 Sinpo 6281km
Submarine base and SLBM test site.
A packed train derailed near Sinpo in 1995, killing about 700 people, according to first-hand accounts in Barbara Demick's book Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea.
🚂 Yanghwa 6287km
🚂 Kangsangri 6294km
🚂 Sok Hu 6301km 23:35
🚂 Sinbukchong 6310km
🚂 Konja 6329km (unscheduled stop due to loss of electrical power)
The engine would sometimes jerk to a start, causing each car to comically rear-end the one in front. When these old non-articulated cars are on the move, their metal parts constantly shear each other in a sonic chaos of jarring metal above the relentless bass of steel wheels rolling over steel rails, in the purest form of heavy metal music.
🚂 Rahung 6333km
🚂 Tanchon 6381km 03:30
🚂 Ryongdae 6397km
🚂 Kimchaek 6424km
🚂 Obok 6444km 06:10
🚂 Wonpyong 6450km
🚂 Kilju 6466km 07:00
closest approach to Musudan-ri missile launch site (30km)
🚂 Myongchon 6484km
🚂 Ryongban 6497km
closest approach to Punggye-ri nuclear test site (30 km)
Passing a Red Flag 1 locomotive in the North Korean countryside. The Red Flag 1 was designed by Chŏn Chae-yun and built by Kim Chong-t'ae Electric Locomotive Works from 1961 to 1980.
🚂 Odaejin 6540km
🚂 Kyongsong 6566km
🚂 Ranam 6587km 13:00
🚂 Chongjin 6600km 14:00
🚂 Cheongam 6603km
🚂 Ryonjin 6623km
🚂 Pugo 6637km
🚂 Samhae 6646km
🚂 Pangjin 6665km
🚂 Huchang 6669km
🚂 Rajin 6681km
A floor-to-ceiling mural in the entrance hall of a kindergarten.
Hambuk Line
🚂 Sonbong 6696km
🚂 Ungsang 6708km
27 September 2018
Hongŭi Line
🚂 Tumangang 6733km (Chinese-Korean-Russian triborder)
Track gauge: 1520 mm
The Tumangang–Moscow service crossing the Tumen River on the Korea-Russia Friendship Bridge. Photo: TowerCard (Creative Commons licence)
Дальневосточная железная дорога (Far Eastern Railway)
🚂 Khasan 6735km (Russian border)
TEP70 diesel-electric locomotive pulling the Tumangang–Ussuriysk leg.
Kolomna Locomotive Works 1973 · 135 tonnes · 2964 kW · 3975 hp · 160 km/h
🚂 Gvozdevo
🚂 Sukhanovka
🚂 Provalovo
🚂 Olenevod
🚂 Ussuriysk
Junction with the main trans-Siberian line. Here the Tumangang–Moscow and Vladivostok-Moscow trains are joined.
Trans-Siberian Railway (train 99)
🚂 Ozernaya
🚂 Sibirtsevo
🚂 Mychnaya
🚂 Spassk-Dalny
🚂 Shmakovka
🚂 Ruzhino
🚂 Dalnerechensk
🚂 Gyberovo
🚂 Luchegorsk
🚂 Bikin
🚂 Vyazemsky
30 September 2018
🚂 Khabarovsk-I (48°29′N 135°05′E)
Easternmost stop. This is farther east than Vladivostok. Kim Jong Il was born near here.
🚂 In
🚂 Birobidzhan
🚂 Bira
🚂 Izvestkovyi Zavod
🚂 Teploe Ozero
🚂 Birakan
🚂 Izvestkovya
🚂 Obluchye
🚂 Kyndyr-Khabarovsk
🚂 Arhara
🚂 Byreya
🚂 Zavitaya
🚂 Ekaterinoslavka
🚂 Belogorsk I
🚂 Svobodny
🚂 Ledyanaya
closest approach (22 km) to former launch silos armed with Soviet SS-11 intercontinental ballistic missiles (range 10600 km).
🚂 Shimanovsk
🚂 Ushumun
🚂 Tygda
🚂 Magdagachi
🚂 Taldan
🚂 Skovorodino
🚂 Urusha
🚂 Erofey Pavlovich
🚂 Amazar
🚂 Mogocha
🚂 Ksenyevskaya
🚂 Sbega
🚂 Zilovo
🚂 Chernyshevsk
🚂 Ky'anga
🚂 Priiskovaya
🚂 Shilka
🚂 Solntsevaya
🚂 Karymskoye
🚂 Chita 2
🚂 Khilok
🚂 Bada
🚂 Petrovskiy Zavod
🚂 Gorhon
🚂 Zaigraevo
🚂 Zaudinskiy
🚂 Ulan Ude (junction with Trans-Mongolian Railway to Beijing)
🚂 Selenga
🚂 Timlyui
From here to Slyudyanka, the railway track hugs the shore of Lake Baikal, the world's oldest and deepest lake. The dark grey pebbles give way to a thin veneer of surface ice that melts into limpid ripples in the cold air, finally dissolving into an infinite expanse of azure water and blue sky out the train windows.
🚂 Mysovaya
🚂 Baikalsk
🚂 Slyudyanka
3 October 2018
🚂 Irkutsk
🚂 Irkutsk Sortirovochyi
🚂 Angarsk
🚂 Ysolye-Sibirskoe
🚂 Cheremhovo
🚂 Zalari
🚂 Tyret'
🚂 Zima
🚂 Kyityn
🚂 Tylyn
🚂 Nizneydinsk
🚂 Taishet
🚂 Yarty
🚂 Reshoty
🚂 Ingashkaya
🚂 Ilanskaya
🚂 Kans-Eyneseiskiy
🚂 Zaozernaya
🚂 Yar
🚂 Krasnoyarsk
🚂 Achinsk
🚂 Bogotol
🚂 Tyazhin
🚂 Mariinsk
🚂 Anzherskaya
🚂 Tayga
🚂 Urga
🚂 Bolotnaya
4 October 2018
🚂 Novosibirsk
🚂 Balabinsk
Emptying the toilets.
🚂 Ozero Karachinskoe
🚂 Chany
🚂 Tatarskaya
🚂 Omsk
🚂 Nazivaevskaya
🚂 Ishim
🚂 Zavodoykovskaya
🚂 Yalytorovsk
🚂 Tyumen
5 October 2018
🚂 Ekaterinburg
A coal truck resupplies the Chinese train from Beijing to Moscow via Ulaanbaatar. While the train is powered by an electric locomotive, coal is used for cooking and making hot water.
The Ufa train disaster happened not far from here. In 1989, two passenger trains were passing through when sparks from the wheels ignited propane and butane leaking from a pipeline, killing 575 people and injuring 800.
🚂 Kyngyr 14651km
In 2008, Aeroflot flight 821 (Boeing 737-500) crashed on approach to Perm, killing all 88 on board (including General Gennady Nikolayevich Troshev, Hero of the Russian Federation) and damaging a section of the Trans-Siberian Railway.
🚂 Perm II
🚂 Verechagino
🚂 Balezino
🚂 Glazov
🚂 Kirov
🚂 Kotel'nich I
🚂 Sveycha
🚂 Shabalino
🚂 Gostovskaya
🚂 Syprotivni
🚂 Ponazyryvo
🚂 Yakshanga
🚂 Sharya
🚂 Manturovo
🚂 Brantovka
🚂 Neya
🚂 Nikilo-Poloma
🚂 Antropovo
🚂 Galich
🚂 Sudislavl
🚂 Kostroma
🚂 Nerekhta
🚂 Yaroslavl
6 October 2018
🚂 Moscow Yaroslavsky station (Trans-Siberian Railway terminus) 16187km
Igor Dementev, who started out from Tumangang in an old T-shirt cleaning the toilet on the train, stood at attention in his splendid grey and red uniform and peaked cap on the platform at Moscow.
My heart was heavy as I alighted and gave a him a nod of thanks. He nodded back, his face hardened by many arduous journeys across Siberia.
Yaroslavsky railway station.
19 October 2018
India's Jalandhar-Amritsar Express ran over a crowd celebrating the Hindu festival of Dussehra.
🚂 Moscow Belorussky (Strizh)
🚂 Smolensk 16617km
Site of the plane crash of Polish Air Force Tupolev Tu-154 in 2010 that killed president Lech Kaczyński and his entourage of top military and government officials.
🚂 Orsha 16736km
🚂 Minsk 16948km
🚂 Brest 17293km (Belarusian border)
Bogies self-adjust from Russian to standard gauge as the train rolls slowly through an auto gauge changer.
Track gauge: 1435 mm
🚂 Terespol 17300km (EU border in Poland)
🚂 Warsaw Wschodnia 17509km
Warsaw Metro.
The old quarters of Warsaw, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
🚂 Iława Główna (unscheduled stop)
🚂 Poznań 17816km
🚂 Rzepin 17972km
🚂 Frankfurt (Oder) 17995km
20 October 2018
🚂 Berlin Ostbahnhof 18105km
🚂 Berlin Hauptbahnhof 18110km (ICE1050)
The Berlin Wall.
🚂 Berlin-Spandau 18121km
🚂 Wolfsburg Hbf 18288km
🚂 Hannover Hbf 18362km
🚂 Bielefeld Hbf 18472km
🚂 Hamm (Westfalen) 18539km
🚂 Hagen Hbf 18586km
🚂 Wuppertal Hbf 18612km
🚂 Köln Hauptbahnhof 18658km (Thalys 9472)
The spires of Cologne Cathedral.
The celebrated TGV (Train à Grande Vitesse, 320 km/h) pulling into Köln Hauptbahnhof for the Thalys TH9448 high-speed service to Paris-Gare du Nord. The TGV set the world speed record of 574.8 km/h in 2007 for a conventional train on steel wheels, and still holds it.
🚂 Aachen Hbf
🚂 Verviers-Central (unscheduled stop)
A cable fault on the high-speed line forced the train to divert onto a winding track through misty pine valleys, over serpentine rivers and past rustic hillside villages.
🚂 Liège
🚂 Bruxelles-Midi 18841km
(Eurostar 9149)
Operated by the original Eurostar TGV (depicted in the mural below).
Only two of these celebrated trains were still in service.
Eurostar first class at 300 km/h.
🚂 Lille Europe
The Eurostar TGV reached a sustained 190 mph (306 km/h) as measured by the Global Positioning System. This was the top speed recorded on the Odyssey of Steel.
🚂 Ashford International
21 October 2018
Taiwan's Puyuma Express derailed near Taipei.
🚂 London St. Pancras 19214km
The famed St. Pancras Renaissance Hotel, which fronts the Eurostar terminal.
London Underground (Westminster station).
The Metropolitan No. 1 steam locomotive pulls into Farringdon Underground station during the celebration of the 150th anniversary of the London Underground, 2013.
London Waterloo.
The 12:00 direct service from London King's Cross to Inverness. The Highland Cheftain service, introduced in 1984, is pulled by the fastest diesel engine in the world, the Class 43 InterCity 125 (238 km/h).
East Coast Main Line (opened 1850)
🚂 London King's Cross
🚂 York
🚂 Darlington
🚂 Newcastle 19612km
🚂 Berwick upon Tweed
🚂 Edinburgh 19846km
🚂 Haymarket
🚂 Falkirk Grahamston
🚂 Stirling
🚂 Gleneagles
🚂 Perth
🚂 Pitlochry
🚂 Kingussie
🚂 Aviemore
22 October 2018
🚂 Inverness 20149km
Inverness from the top floor of the Pentahotel.
Far North Line (completed 1874)
🚂 Beauly
🚂 Muir of Ord
🚂 Conon Bridge
🚂 Dingwall
🚂 Alness
🚂 Invergordon
🚂 Fearn
🚂 Tain
🚂 Ardgay
🚂 Culrain
🚂 Invershin
🚂 Lairg
🚂 Rogart
🚂 Golspie
🚂 Dunrobin Castle
🚂 Brora
🚂 Helmsdale
🚂 Kildonan
🚂 Kinbrace
🚂 Forsinard
🚂 Altnabreac
🚂 Scotscalder
🚂 Georgemas Junction
🚂 Wick (diversion due to earlier train fault)
24 October 2018
🚂 Thurso 20406km
During the two world wars there was a direct train between London and Thurso. It was called the Jellicoe Express and carried Royal Navy personnel.
British Rail Class 158 (140 km/h) with aluminium chassis.
The end of the Odyssey of Steel.
