Travelling By Train With Your Bike In Iran and Pakistan
 

Does anyone know whether or not it is possible to travel with your bike on the trains in Iran and Pakistan? By that I mean get a normal seat on a train and also have your bike in the cargo part of the train (if they do that sort of thing), my girlfriend and I are currently in Istanbul and are trying to work out how to cross both Iran and Pakistan at the moment!! :confused1:

Ta,

Christopher

The Wonderful Wander To Oz

Bikes - no problem
 

Hi

I don't know for sure about Pakistan but have heard that its possible to put your bike on the train although they were rumoured to be unrealiable when we were there.

Iran is no problem with a bike and we used a train in India which all I can say is a barrel of laughs.

Becky

Thanks Becky, when were you in Pakistan? The idea of putting my bike on a train isn't my favourite one but I'm not sure what the roads will be like there just now with winter coming on!

Christopher

I went through Iran and Pakistan at this time of year and it was fine... the only time coldness will be a problem is if you venture onto a high altitude route.

Regarding trains, i would of thought this is possibly do able in Iran although I have no experience of it, but Pakistan? as you cross the border from Iran to Pak there is no railway station there at Taftan?, then you have about 600ks to Quetta where there is a station, but if you can do that first 600ks, the remaining distance to say Suckur, Bahawalpur and then Lahore is pretty easy.

Then your all but in India and enjoying your first beer for a while... and it tastes good!

Going between Turkey and India on the ´classic´ overland-route, the only region that´s highly likely to get snowed in any time now, is eastern Turkey & the part of Iran thats adjacent to it. If you get the bike on a train to Teheran, I think the rest will be quite do-able, except for a couple of weeks in midwinter maybe.

We crossed Turkey (coming from Greece) October 25th-November 2nd, 2007, and then went through Iran in 12 days or so, and Pakistan in just 5 days. Crossed the border to India on November 19th. The easternmost 1/3rd of Turkey was cold or very cold, some 5-12 Celsius in the day, zero or a few degrees minus in the night, some snow in the nearby mountains, but never on the road, and once we´d ridden 200-300 kms in Iran, it got warm enough to ride comfortably. After that, the problem was always likely to be the heat, not cold.

With some good cold weather riding-gear, and checking the forecasts on the net, that route is probably still do-able, but not for long.

I looked into putting my bike on the train from Islamabad to Quetta, takes 28hrs from memory and looked about the same price as petrol so figured it wasn't worth it in the end. Think it was called the Jaffa Express or something.

Thanks guys, we thought it might be the whole of Iran that was going to be cold but from your experience it sounds quite doable, currently trying to weigh up our options, either make a run for Iran and Pakistan or stay in Istanbul for a few months working and then head for India when it starts to warm up, any thoughts anyone?

Depends on what you want to do I guess. Eastern Turkey will definitely be too cold to ride on a bike, when proper winter comes, and it might be February, March, or who knows, even April, before that mountain area warms up again.

But I remember reading something like it could be possible to get the bike on a train from Ankara to Teheran? This would make the route passable for bikes virtually year-round.

While in India, we did see some news footage in December or January, when parts of central Iran had had a lot of snow, and surely didnt look like nice weather for motorbikes... the cars, with no winter tyres, were piled up on the ditches both sides of the road. But that must be rare, wouldnt have made the news otherwise I think.

Hi

Eastern Turkey gets snow around end of November if I remember correctly from our friends but Iran was no problem in November. We only got snow in the very north of pakistan in november which is generally a mountain region so made it a little arkward to negotiate.

If you head into India and then head south you'll get the best weather everywhere - if it were me I'd head off asap.

Thanks guys, we decided to make a run for it straight away and are already on the road, fingers crossed that we make it before any heavy snow fall!! Now our only worry is Pakistan .... should we or shouldn't we!!?

Chrıstopher

Iran Pakistan and on
 

Hi Guys, I am heading to Aus/Nz and presently in Erzurum waiting for a visa.
If you catch up I am happy for the company after the Paki border to Quetta. I hear its a fun ride !
But after Russia, I hope I am ready.
nzl04

Company sounds good. We are currently in Cappadocia, heading to Zara tomorrow and hopefully be in Erzurum the day after. If you are still there, it would be good to meet up. What`s the weather like there? We are bit worried about the snow.

Christopher