One of the more interesting view from the Trans Asia train
A container train carrying fifty containers of Fujiusu Siemens IT products has left Xiangtang in China on a seventeen-day 10,000 km journey to Hamburg in Germany, via the Eurasian Landbridge.
The train travels through China and Mongolia, crossing the border to Russia near Irkutsk, and continues along the route taken by the Trans-Siberian Railway via Novosibirsk, Omsk and Ekaterinburg to Moscow, and then through Belarus and Poland to arrive in Hamburg on October 6th.
Heribert Göggerle, senior vice president of supply operations at Fujitsu Siemens Computers (FSC) points out that shipping IT products by rail is more flexible, around one third faster than ocean freight and 25% cheaper than airfreight.
Will this ever work for passengers? In truth, it is already possible but it would be very long and, sadly, mostly boring. It used to be quite a feature of travel before World War II when people coming to Hong Kong from England (and vice versa) avoided the voyage through the Red Sea. The terminal in Hong Kong was near the Kowloon Ferry (the tower still stands) and that is why the Peninsula Hotel was built in Kowloon.
Source: Eye for Transport