https://vienna-pyongyang.blogspot.com/2008/04/how-everything...
I’m trying to think, what would be the most efficient way to compute this? There has to be something better than brute force
If your definition includes a visa-free journey with no need to change trains, then the theretical limit is pretty easy to figure out: Minsk - Vladivostok. The second longest theoretical journey would probably be northern British Colombia down to Mexico / Guatemala border.
Check out retours.eu for some classy posters from a time when railways ruled along with ocean liners. You really could get to places that we have subsequently deemed to be too war-torn for travel. Even in America you had 'broadway' tracks (four tracks, for slow and fast services in each direction) racing across the country, with competing operators, each with their own 'broadway' tracks.
Interestingly, in the UK, train services have not got quicker, necessarily. There were also the Beeching cuts that decimated the amount of services.
Shout out to 'The man in seat 61', couldn't have done it without it.
It's possible to stay on one train from Vladivostok to Moscow, on the train ride number 001Э (002Э goes the opposite direction): https://www.russianrail.com/train/rossiya
And if anyone goes from Portugal to Laos, they should read this book along the way: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Railway_Bazaar
ChrisMarshallNY•3h ago
I would get on the Long Island Railroad, in Huntington, and get off the Narita Express, in Shinagawa.
Strangely enough, I would get off the train, before I got on the train.