Loving this thread, some great memories of the good old days here.
All of this still goes on.. Bogies are changed every day/night on the many of RZhD's through trains from the west on the former Soviet borders into Byelorussia, Ukraine, Moldova as well as the once weekly through train from Paris and Nice to Moskva there is still a Praha - Moskva train once per week and of course the Polonez also still runs with RIC cars every two days from Warszawa.
You also have a twice weekly Berlin Ost - Moskva through Talgo with auto gauge changing at Brest so no need for time consuming bogie chages.
What you describe on the Trans-Sib is still very much alive and has hardly changed in thirty years. I enjoyed the classic Russian train experience on my epic Glasgow - Khasan overland trip during the World Cup last summer.
The Sibirjak trains were sadly discontinued with the winter TT change of 2013..:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sibirjak
I can relate to this even thirty years later, its still possible! I did exactly what you describe many times over the past few years on my travels across the continent on IR's and FIP coupons. Vagonweb is an excellent resource for this way of "ultra budget travel" but I will upgrade to a C6 couchette at least most of the time these days especially if the train in question is formed of more "grossraum"s than "abteil"s!!
If you want to relive all this, just take one of the through RZhD trains to Russia and travel around a bit and you'll get a good taste of the closest thing to the good old days of the Reichsbahn and that "Soviet feeling", especially from the FSB pass control units at the border who still wear Sibirskii-Ushanka hats with red stars on them in winter!
I went well off the beaten track in Russia last year and it really was a step back in time in some places..
I'd have thought the Deutsche Reichsbahn was a member of InterRail as were most of the Warsaw Pact countries railways? And surely the crews that worked the "Interzonenzueg" would only be worked by West Berliners? The Reichsbahn was one of the biggest employers there despite being the state railway of the DDR.
Zoo bahnhof was / is until recently a step back in time as well, very neglected since it lost most of its international trains to Lehrte Bahnhof / (the new Hauptbahnhof).
I believe renovations are underway now but I did always like the old-school feeling of the place with the unchanged 80's tiles and old lockers outside were still in situ when I was last there in December, with the Reisezentrum now moved to a portakabin along the street with the works are going on inside.
Brilliant. I'm sadly not old enough to have been around to enjoy all that, its one of my greatest bug bearers that what you describe is impossible now in this country, despite international CIV tickets being still readily available from the counter across most of Europe.
You can still make Berlin overnight from London but only in a seat now since sadly on ICE 949 from Aachen / Koeln after the cancellation of the EuroNight Jan Kiepura in 2016.
Indeed. the DDR refugee crisis was exactly thirty years ago right now and is hot topic in DE again.
Kettcar sum this time up brilliantly in their song "Sommer '89" about the actions of an anonymous young Hamburger who made his way down to Moerbisch am See on 12 August to assist some DDR citizens commit Republikflucht..:
Good news on this route recently, MAV have reinstated their excellent Ammendorf DDR built restaurant cars on all of the EuroCity train pairs they operate between Wien and Budapest.
@parkender102 -I too approve! Brilliant post, I think you wrote more of this round the world trip a year or so ago if I remember right?
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Czesziafan -That is an impressive collection, Ive never seen the SZhD logo before and often wondered what it looked like. Funny to see it in Latin-script, no doubt it was widespread in Cyrillic within the CCCP?
I particularly like your Mitropa badge.
Intresting story about the Polish girl, before '89? How did she make it out to live in England and still be allowed to come back for a visit?! Diplomat or government official to the Peoples Republic of Polska?!
@ChiefPlanner -It indeed is.. That's one thing I do not miss about North London!
@sheff1 -I think the Yankee government have always been a bit funny about their citizens visiting "hostile states" and therefore quite keen to question anyone going east as to what they were doing there (even if only heading for West Berlin), I think similar questioning would be likely to any US citizen going /returning from DPRK or PR China. No doubt someone older and experienced can shed more light.