motorbike on siberian railroad

[duffyduck]

hi there!

as my plans with buying an ural/dnjepr in russia seem to get impossible i consider traveling with my other motorbike. to make a hugh distance into russia i now plan to take the siberian railroad from moskow to irkutsk and travel back home to austria on my own bike.


the first problem is that it seems to get difficult to get tickets for the railroad in moscow itself, lots of people recommend to buy the ticket somewhere on the internet due to the languagetroubles i will have in moscow. well, can somebody let me know his/her experiences with buying tickets and traveling the siberian railroad?
further no one of the agencies offer me the possibility to put my bike on the train. luggage limit is 30kg???
has anybody ever put his motorbike on the train? is it still possible nowadays and how much approx. would be the price? internet offers differ about 300%..

many thanks in advance... matthias

[honey rider]

I took the train last august Irkutsk - Moscow - I booked the tickets for passengers and motorbikes through a travel agency in Irkutsk - but once we've got there, we had no chance to load the bikes on the train, for safety reasons - maybe now it is possible again, but check first - so we had to ship the bikes by plane, and it was more expensive, even because with the train we arrived 2 days after the bikes and had to pay deposit - but I think it can be a good option to fly both passengers and bikes

[sashadidi]

Originally Posted by duffyduck

hi there!

as my plans with buying an ural/dnjepr in russia seem to get impossible i consider traveling with my other motorbike. to make a hugh distance into russia i now plan to take the siberian railroad from moskow to irkutsk and travel back home to austria on my own bike.


the first problem is that it seems to get difficult to get tickets for the railroad in moscow itself, lots of people recommend to buy the ticket somewhere on the internet due to the languagetroubles i will have in moscow. well, can somebody let me know his/her experiences with buying tickets and traveling the siberian railroad?
further no one of the agencies offer me the possibility to put my bike on the train. luggage limit is 30kg???
has anybody ever put his motorbike on the train? is it still possible nowadays and how much approx. would be the price? internet offers differ about 300%..

many thanks in advance... matthias

It can be done but you would need a bribe and knowledge of russian I think

[Tony P]

There are freight train services where you deliver the bike to them. They load it on freight trains and off load it at the destination and store it until you arrive to collect it.
You take different trains or fly.
Either way you will have dead time without the bike.

I have not used this but friends have done for transporting sno-mobiles (snow-scooter) between Moscow to Novokuznetsk (central Siberia, north of Altai/Tuva).
It works, is secure, but is slow.