London - Astana (aka "Nur-Sultan), July 2019

I recently travelled from London to Astana (aka "Nur-Sultan") in Kazakhstan by train. I visit Kazakhstan every year as it's where my other half is originally from - this time I was able to find a combination of rail tickets that was of comparable cost to a plane ticket, but due to work commitments it was a fairly direct trip without much stopping along the way. I thought it'd be worth documenting here both for myself and anyone else that's interested.

Day One
London St Pancras, UK to Frankfurt (Oder), Germany

The first day of my trip was to take me across Western Europe, mostly by high speed train to the border between Germany and Poland on the Oder river. I had a fairly tight schedule with short connections at several locations, but with the reassurance that on each leg of the journey there were later connections so very little risk in not making it to Frankfurt (Oder) by the end of the day. I bought a DB Sparpreis Europa ticket a few weeks before my journey which meant the whole days travelling would cost a little over €100.

London St Pancras 08:54 – 12:05 Brussels Midi
I live in London, so it was fairly easy to get across to St Pancras for my train to Brussels. The train departed and arrived on time - I was happy with the efficient journey. I travelled at the rear of the train and at Brussels Midi was disappointed that the escalator down to the "inter-connection" passage was cordoned off - the lift however was in-use with only one person inside it, so I joined them and got down to the inter-connection passage and across to platform 6 for my next train with plenty of time to spare.


Brussels Midi 12:25 – 14:15 Cologne Hbf
My booked seat in the ICE3 was at the front, right behind the semi-transparent screen that separates the cabin from the drivers cab. My train was lightly loaded and I enjoyed the drivers eye view as we sped towards Liege, on to Aachen then slowed down for the section of the journey to Cologne where the tracks are shared with the inter-regional trains. We pulled into Cologne Hbf on time and I took a quick look at the platform for my next train before popping out of the station to get a look at the famous "Dom" (cathedral) visible a right outside.




Cologne Hbf 14:48 – 19:05 Berlin Hbf
Back inside Cologne Hbf after my brief connection, to take my final "high speed" train of the journey - although the section from Cologne through to Bielefeld is far from fast as it passes through the congested tracks of Germany's industrial heartland skirting the edge of Dusseldorf and Dortmund along the way. The train passed Wuppertal where the suspension railway was still out of action (I've since heard it started running again in early August). Again the train ran to time and I got into Berlin Hbf on time, although my scheduled connection directly on to Frankfurt (Oder) was unavailable due to engineering work.


Berlin Hbf 19:15 – 20:00 Erkner
Due to the engineering work in the suburbs of eastern Berlin, I needed to take an S-Bahn to the final stop of S3 at Erkner where the train to Frankfurt (Oder) was starting from. Berlin Hbf is a beautiful multi-level station and I crossed to the top level for the S-Bahn, getting a good look along the way at the Berlin Night Express seasonal sleeper train about to depart to Malmo, Sweden. The S-Bahn was pretty busy, but it was a sunny evening and a good way to get a look at parts of Berlin I'd otherwise be unlikely to see.


Erkner 20:24 – 21:04 Frankfurt (Oder)
At Erkner a large number of people from the S-Bahn walked across to the mainline platforms, located separately to the S-Bahn. I checked with one of them and he confirmed it was the right place for the train to Frankfurt (Oder). We were already in the countryside setting off from Erkner and didn't pass through any substantial towns on the way to Frankfurt (Oder), although at Fürstenwalde (Spree) there was a branch line train waiting in a side platform. Frankfurt (Oder) was a larger station than I'd expected - probably in recognition as its former status as a significant border stop between DDR (East Germany) and Poland. There was a black tank engine sitting on the tracks just outside the station.



I had a simple hotel booked in Frankfurt (Oder), directly across from the train station. Although I'd originally planned to take the 20mins walk over the Oder to the neighbouring town in Poland I decided to defer that to the morning and get some food close to the hotel.

I'd travelled 1,009km as the crow flies, still 3,815km from Astana. After the business-like trains from the first day, I was looking forward to moving on into Eastern Europe and experiencing PKP (Poland) and RZD (Russian) trains the next day...

Sounds like quite an adventure so far, although fairly bog standard I can imagine compared to what's to come!

That branch line train at Fürstenwalde would have been headed for Bad Saarow Klinikum which I believe is some sort of spa resort.

I've done that walk from Frankfurt a/d Oder to Słubice before on a bitterly cold January afternoon, can't say I saw much of interest but the freezing wind was pushing me back towards the German border!

rg177 said:

Sounds like quite an adventure so far, although fairly bog standard I can imagine compared to what's to come!

That branch line train at Fürstenwalde would have been headed for Bad Saarow Klinikum which I believe is some sort of spa resort.

I've done that walk from Frankfurt a/d Oder to Słubice before on a bitterly cold January afternoon, can't say I saw much of interest but the freezing wind was pushing me back towards the German border!

Click to expand...

Interesting info about Fürstenwalde. The short train in the platform there seemed full with lots of teenagers - mainly locals I imagined.

Luckily for me the warm July weather made Frankfurt/Oder and Słubice appear much more appealing than they would have been in winter!

I recently travelled from London to Astana (aka "Nur-Sultan") in Kazakhstan by train. I visit Kazakhstan every year as it's where my other half is originally from - this time I was able to find a combination of rail tickets that was of comparable cost to a plane ticket, but due to work commitments it was a fairly direct trip without much stopping along the way. I thought it'd be worth documenting here both for myself and anyone else that's interested.

Day Two
Frankfurt (Oder), Germany to Brest, Belarus

As I woke up in my hotel bed in Frankfurt (Oder) I made sure to enjoy the comfort, as the following nights would be spent on board sleeper trains. My first train of the day wasn't until 10:47 and I used my time to walk through town, passing along pleasant tree lined streets with trams forming a useful network with 5 lines. Wikipedia tells me the town's population is just under 60,000 - I guess one of the positive impacts of being in the DDR is the continued use of this network which has been running since 1898. My walk took me past Lennépark - a pleasant park I originally thought was named after Lenin, but investigation shows is named after Peter Lenné, the designer of the park in the 19th century. Within 20 minutes I'd reached the bridge across to Słubice, the Polish town on the other side of the river. Here I found a monument to Wikipedia as the main distraction before circling around and walking back across the border to Germany. I had 30 minutes until my train when I reached my hotel, so I quickly packed and walked over to the station after checking out. If all went well, I would be be going through the gauge-changer at Brest just over the border of Poland/Belarus by the end of the day - but I had a risky 41 minute change in Warsaw to overcome first.



Frankfurt (Oder) 10:47 – 15:24 Warsaw Centralna
I still had time to buy a sandwich and some snacks at the station before I got on my train. It was apparent this train was going to have a different ambience from my trains on the previous day - lots of backpackers and a large Australian tour group dominated the station. I found my way to my seat - strangely I was booked in the compartment at the end of the coach for people requiring assistance. I didn't seem to be taking up a seat that someone else needed and anyway, the other compartments appeared fully occupied so I didn't have much choice (4 of the 6 seats in my compartment we occupied). As the train set off, a middle aged man in my compartment left with a bottle of Jagermeister and joined a large group of Australians filling up several compartments part way through the carriage. Half an hour later he came back with an empty bottle and proceeded to take another Jagermeister out of his bag to rejoin the group. Several other people in my compartment looked at him with suspicion as he walked out. It was only when he came back half an hour later with another empty bottle and proceeded to take a nap that I realised he was their tour group leader! His group were between 50-70 years old and they seemed to enjoy the journey!


I had an eye on a PKP real time journey tool on my phone to see if we were keeping time. For the first few stops we were doing well, but after an hour we stopped for several minutes and by the time we reached Poznan we were 20 minutes late. I'd expected some kind of delay on this service, but knowing my connection to Moscow was at stake made it hard to relax. It was the one connection in my journey I wasn't comfortable with - my backup plan was either to find some road transport (bus or taxi) to the Polish/Belarus border at Brest where my next train was due to spend 3 hours for immigration and gauge changing OR (if that wasn't practical) to fly from Warsaw to Minsk or Moscow to continue the other trains I have booked. I know from previous experience that buying train tickets in the former Soviet Union during the summer months isn't possible at short notice as trains simply sell out (unless you're willing to negotiate directly with the "provodnik"/conductor on board the train). At Konin we stopped again - an onboard message appeared to indicate there was an accident and/or trespass on the track ahead and I began to give up on my chances of making my connection at Warsaw. I found some flight tickets for €160 from Warsaw to Moscow and consoled myself with the thought that I'd have some time to see some sights in Moscow with my change of plans.

After stopping for around 20 minutes at Konin, the train lurched forward and we were on our way again - we were now 45 minutes late. I found the conductors compartment and showed them my ticket to Moscow. With a shrug, they told me they would phone through to Warsaw to request the train to Moscow be held - their body language implied this was unlikely to happen, but I felt better for asking. They also confirmed some information I'd found online that the Frankfurt/Oder-Warsaw and Warsaw-Moscow trains would normally share either side of an island platform at Warsaw Centralna, but with delays this pattern may change. We pulled into Warszawa Zachodnia (Warsaw's western station) exactly 40 minutes late - we'd made up a few minutes and I thought that if we could leave Zachodnia without much dwell time, I might have a chance to make my connection. I was pleased to see the doors close quickly and we proceeded on the 5 minute journey to Centralna. As our train pulled into the platform I could see the red RZD coaches on the opposite side of the island platform. It was now 16:04 and the Moscow train was due to depart at 16:05. I was positioned by the door and jumped out as soon as it opened.

Warsaw Centralna 16:05 – 12:25 (+ 1 day) Moscow Belorussky
I'd been keeping an eye on the carriage numbers as my Frankfurt/Oder train pulled in and I decided to detour 20 metres to my carriage rather than risk the provodnik for one of the Belarusian carriages refusing my ticket. The provodnik for my coach was one of the few still standing on the platform - he accepted my ticket and closed the door a few seconds after he let me inside. The train pulled out of the station towards Moscow as I found my compartment - as I sat down I could barely believe my luck. I don't know if they'd received/accepted any instructions to hold the train for me, but at this point I didn't care!

My "kupe"/compartment held 3 guys in their early 20s in addition to me. We were silent as the moved along to Warszawa Wschodnia (Warsaw's eastern station) but soon we started chatting and I found we had a very international group - a Japanese student based in Paris, a British student based in Holland and a Russian student based in Austria. Each of them had started from their respective origin by train - we joked that RZD had examined our travel patterns before placing us together as a good match! The Russian stated he was avoiding flying for environmental reasons, while the Japanese and British both appeared to anticipate the adventure of a long rail journey.

Before long we reached immigration and customs, first to leave Poland (and the Schengen area) and then to enter Belarus (and the shared customs union with Russia). Each of us (apart from the Russian in our kupe) completed a two-part customs form - the first half being ripped off to be kept by the Belarus customs as we entered, the other half to be carefully guarded to be handed in when we left Belarus/Russia. The process for both sides of the border was completed quite quickly and soon we were trundling across to the "Warsaw"/European side of Brest train station to let off any passengers for Brest. After a 10 minute wait here, we were shunted back in the direction of the border to the gauge-changing sheds where the bogies on the train would be changed from 1,435mm to 1,520mm. This was an interesting process - each of the carriages in the train was split apart and hydraulic jacks lifted us up by around a metre. We had a fairly good view of what was happening to the carriage behind us by looking through the corridor connector. After all the carriages were jacked up, the original bogies were rolled away towards the back of the train - following this the new (larger gauge) bogies were rolled into place and each carriage was lowered before workers reconnected the carriage to the bogie. As our train was finishing this process, another train travelling in the opposite direction pulled into the shed on a parallel track to exchange their larger bogies for the smaller size - we were able to get a good view of this process too. The whole process for our train took under an hour - we moved back towards Brest station, this time pulling into a platform on the "Moscow"/Russian side of the station (with 1,520mm gauge tracks).


The provodnik confirmed we had just under an hour before our train would depart from Brest (this was confirmed by the platform displays) so I took a walk around the station. Given it was almost midnight, most of the platforms were quiet. However, a large waiting hall was filled with people and the departure board listed departures heading out through the night to various destinations in Belarus and Russia. I was able to use some pidgin-Russian to order a "piroshkie", a pastry stuffed with cheese and cabbage - contactless cards accepted so my debit card with 0% commission for foreign purchases allowed me to avoid withdrawing any Belarusian rubles.




We rolled out of Brest station just before midnight. As the crow flies I'd covered 626km on day two - I was now 1,635km from London with another 3,235km to go until Astana.