A TRAIN JOURNEY IN SIBERIA.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 7507, 15 September 1902, Page 2

A TRAIN JOURNEY IN SIBERIA.

CHEAT AND COMFORTABLE. (By JOHN FOSTER FRASER, in. " The Real Siberia.") It -was not a big train. There was the heavy engine, there was one first-class oar, there were two second-class cars,- a restaurant cost, and another car for cooking, carrying baggage, and so on. The train was luxuriously fitted, and first-class passengers (there not 'bedng many) had each a coupe to himself, double-win-dowed, to keep out the cold, hot-air pipes in plenty, and a thermometer on the wall, so that they might see th© temperature; a writing-tablei a chair, a movable electric lamp, with green shade, two electric bells, one to the car-attendant and the other in communication) with the restaurant. Each night the attendant would make up a/ comfortable bed, soft and /'clean, and the regulation, is that the linen should be changed three times in the eight days. A touch of the bell in the early morning, ,and a boy brought <& cup of tea. Ten minutes, later there was a rap at the door, and the attendant entering, put down your boots he had polished, and told you the bath wa3. ready)! , As the rails are wide, the coaches iheavy, and the speed something under thirty miles an hour, there was none of that side-jerking which is so inconvenient on an English line. The train x ran smoothly, with only a low dull thud to remind you that you were travelling. So steady . was the going that I shared every morning without a, disaster. Returning to my coupe, I found' the bed removed, the place swept and aired, and the attendant spraying the corridor with perfume. In the middle of the car was a 1 lounge, and at the tail of the end coach a little room, almost glass-encased', to serve as observation car. 'The restaurant was a cosy place, with movable tables and! chairs, a piano at one end and a library at the other. Outside were some forty degrees Fahrenheit of frost, but the heat of the carriages was kept at about sixty-five degrees, which was warm, but suited the Russians. How the railway administration makes that Siberian express pay is a wonder. The first-class fore for the entire journey is just over £8, while eecond-class passengers, who have all the advantages of the first, save that the coupes are not so finely decorated, only pay about £5. Russia is determined! to get all the quick traffic between Western Europe , and the Far East. Now, if you go by boat from London to Shanghai it will, occupy thirtysix days, and the cost will be from £68 to £96. If you travel express all the way by tie Moscow-Vladivostok route you can, get from London to Shanghai in sixteen aays. Travelling first class the cost will be £33 10s, second class £21, and if you don't mind the rough of third' class you can be taken the whole 8000 miles for just £13 10s. You. go riding over the trans-Siberian line for one day, two days, » week, and .etill those twin threads* of steel stretch further and further. The thing begins to fascinate, and you stand -for hours on the rear car andi watch tihe rails spin under your feet — miles, miles 2 thousands of miles ! '. . " ■ It is not tie gaunt, lonesome waste of Siberia that frightens you. What grips you and plays upon your imagination' is that men should have thus half -girdled the world with a band of steel. On board) tihat train was like on board! ship. In a day everybody was friendly with everybody else. Russian military, officers played cardls all day long with German commercial travellers ; a long-limbed, fair-whiskered naval officer, on ihis way home after four months' starving adventure in the far north map-making, became the devoted slave of the stout Moscow Jewess, who wore diamonds • that made one's eyes ache, and who was constantly tinkling with one finger on the piano the refrain in Chopin's " Funeral March- "• three rugged', good-natured American goldminers, returning from the Mongolian mountains, lay on their backs reading novels, except when they turned over on their sides to spit; and! a couple of Boers from the Transvaal, who had' been- goldprospecting in Southern Siberia, became the best of friends with myself. We avoided any reference to the war. Twice there, was an impromptu kind of concert on board. Dreary t grey, snowdriven Siberia was all around^ but, in /that car, warm and light, with wine-bottle* about, the air filled with Kmoke 1 andi the pianos jangling music-hall airs, we were tihe merriest throng. /So <d&y iby d*y we soiled to the west, leaving Siberia behind, climbing the Ural Mountains and! descending them into Europe. We left Irkutsk on Friday evening, Nov. 1, at midnight, and on Saturday evening, Nov. 9, 1901 j we roared into the great station at Moscow at five minutes past seven t exactly seven days, twentythree hours and fifty-five minutes on the way— arriving to the. minute by the timltable—if allowance is made for the difference in time between the two oities.