Bejing to Moscow by Rail

I would love to do this trip if only feasible.

I am doing it this August. Departing on the 23 of Aug. I'm very excited about this trip and can't wait.

Going August 2018

I'd love to hear about your experience. I'm considering this trip for 2019. I'll be travelling solo and I'm wondering if having a cabin to myself would be worth the huge single supplement.

I'll keep you posted.
Colin

Interesting. I need to arrive in Moscow by August 20 to get to St Petersburg (5 hours by high speed train) to meet up with a Road Scholar trip originating there the next day. My current idea is to fly to Beijing and then to Ulaan Bator and then fly to Moscow on Aeroflot (two years ago I flew Aeroflot from Moscow to JFK and just as good as an American airline).
In years past I've looked at the train trip that you have planned and was ready to go on a part train / part air trip but that fell through. When I looked at traveling by myself, I noticed a great difference in prices by class of trains; I'm allergic to tobacco so being in a car for five ? days that allows smoking would be untenable.
May I ask what you have found in the way of cost and type of train accommodations?

My trip starts in Beijing 24 August, 2018.

We did the trip Aug-Sep. 2017. Good trip.

We did same trip last year with extension to St. P. Good trip.

After our extension to St. P we went to Hong Kong . Road Scholar booked us from St. P to Helsinki to HK because they did not recommend flying Aeroflot it was too undependable...that's all I needed to hear.

RS has us on a Chinese train from Beijing to Siberian border. On the RS Russian part of the train trip RS has us on the Tsar's Gold cars that went from Siberia to Moscow we had a compartment with a private bath that could be used at any time (vs. other cars whose toilet could only be used when the train was moving) plus our own car attendants. Our car was NonS. Not sure about the other cars but saw no one smoking on the Tsar's Gold train. Some of our group were in other cars and shared compartments, as well as, shared a bath between compartments and said it worked out ok once you got coordinated but a drawback was you couldn't use the privy when in the stations because of the types of toilets in the various cars

The cost was all inclusive from Beijing to Moscow + the cost of extension to St.P.
If you go on your own, there are all kinds of options and toilets are only in certain cars. Reality shows on the internet show what they are like.

On our trip last year there were 2 women who had their own compartments with private baths (one had the large bathroom)and others shared compartments and bathrooms. I personally would opt for having my own compartment. There is plenty of opportunity to "mingle" with the rest of the group (we had 19 until Moscow and then we had 10 or 11 for the extension.

I did this trip last August, 2017. It was one of the best trips I've ever had. Not for beginners, but for the real adventurer / traveler. You will love it.

I'll see you there.

Not me, I did this trip last year but I'm sure you will see many wonderful travelers. Let me clarify about the bathrooms. The above information is not accurate. The bathrooms in my train could only be used when the train was moving, they would put in a "biologic toilet" when the train stopped and you could use that. However. most of the train cars had normal flush toilets, not like ours , and they could be used 24/7. Whenever the train stopped, if I needed to use the bathroom, I would leave my train car, open the doors and go into the next train car & use their bathroom. 90% of the cars had normal flush toilets, only , I believe , 2 cars had the kind that you couldn't use when stopped (but they did provide a solution with the biologic) . The compartments with ensuite toilets cost double what our compartment cost. I didn't feel that was worth it since 40-50% of the trip we slept in Hotels as well. This was the most fabulous trip, you will have a great time. Relax, ignore our American pampered ways, and get in touch with the adventurer inside of you. Enjoy!

How was it? We are doing it this (2019) August. Am curious about laundry service...? Have noted somewhere that someone said there is a service available but you have to KNOW and to ASK for it...? Any other observations you think might be important?