I love this site: it’s such a nice reminder of the information-rich sites of the early 2000s, and it’s been extremely useful in planning journeys over the years.
Same. Probably one of the best sites in this category. No fluff, not filled with a dozen ads, simple navigation, and 90% of the time, really accurate information
This guy posts some really unique information -- I used his site back in 2012 when I first visited Myanmar after the end of sanctions. His site had a full train timetable, cabin descriptions and a guide for buying tickets (accurate, none the less) when there was basically zero other information out there. Took the train from Yangon to Mandalay, and it was definitely an experience! Also, more recently, the Norther Explorer train from Wellington to Auckland.
I've also researched all sorts different train rides, like the journey from Shenzhen to Urumqi and the trans-siberian, neither of which I've gotten to (yet!).
I like that New Zeland trains feature in the same category as ones in Myanmar. Over here in New Zealand we have gone to quite a lot of effort to make a system this bad.
hah! Sorry if it came across that way, obviously those are two very different categories of train -- they do fall under equally scenic IMO but that's where the similarities end.
Russia -> Mongolia -> China -> Vietnam -> Cambodia (he might have cheated here and gone by bus, Cambodia does have trains but they're not really available for passengers anymore I don't think) -> Thailand -> Malaysia -> Singapore
Cambodia has trains now. Started a few years ago, from Phnom Penh to Sihanoukville. There is also a new train line to the Thai border that I think opened recently but it doesn’t connect to the Thai railway.
There was always a line from Phnom Penh to Battambang but it was only a single line and I think there were only a couple trains a week on it. Early 2000's you could bribe your way onto it (or even on top of it...) but from what I recall it was extremely slow.
Interestingly since it was only used infrequently the locals knew when the big trains were coming and would basically build their own mini motorised platforms to zip up and down the line. Two sets of wheels on axles, a bamboo "raft" that sat on top of them with a hole towards the back where a motor ran a chain down to the back axle.
I rode on one circa 2008, because it was a single line, if you met someone coming the other way you basically had to disassemble the entire thing (which probably took less than a minute) and then re-assemble once they'd passed.
Yes Battambang is along the Poipet (Thai Border) line. Never tried the bamboo trains but from what I understand it was a very limited area where it was operating.
It's still slow. And not completely safe; multiple cases of some dude sleeping on the tracks and the train went over them also there was a derailing. But I guess compared to the crazy regional highway traffic it still is safer. Also a great way to see the countryside.
I've been a huge fan of this site for years now. It reminds me of the early internet - personal, full of useful information, and not constantly trying to growth hack, A/B test, optimize and redesign every single part of a website.
I took the train from Cairo to Alexandria in Egypt a few months ago and this site had information that even local Egyptians couldn't provide me. It blows my mind how this guy not only provides so much information, but also regularly updates it - even in countries where this information can be very uncertain.
Such a massive amount of custom information is quite impressive. I wonder how a single man can maintain all of it up to date, as it seems to be mostly written by hand.
It's his job now (he makes money off of ticket booking commissions, plus probably some other stuff). I'm sure he also gets feedback from public information sources, travelers, and train enthusiasts.
We're left depending on the few people who have the time/energy/money to produce labors of love and charities like this. Beyond that, we're left with centralized superplatforms.
At least the rail companies are starting to care for their websites nowadays, at least in Europe. In Spain I've heard the running insult-joke when some other fellow programmer will ask you about your experience only to get back to you saying "nah... I know you. You're the guy who made the Renfe website" (Renfe is the Spanish state rail company, and their website is... not great.)
I have the same feeling. But, my guess it that it’s not that those sites don’t exist. It’s more about finding these gems. Content-free sales pages have been search engine optimized the last years. So the SERPs are full of commercial shit. We need better exploration possibilities. That’s one of the reasons I love HN.
To be fair, based on my searches, "Get from x to y by train"-type searches tend to feature this site on the first page of results -- that's how I found it originally. So something in the Google algorithm clearly values this type of content-rich, no-frills site.
I kinda want one of these directory websites you could find in the early 2000s that were just collections of websites the author liked. I want a page like that just filled with links to pushed like this. projectrho.com comes to mind as another page I would want to see liked there.
You probably didn't notice, but he went through and updated each page to work on mobile devices. It's amazing how much effort and love he puts into this site: https://www.seat61.com/mobile-version.htm
This site really helped me get oriented to the India rail system (or at least as much as is possible without experiencing it first hand).
Got a first class ticket from Kolkata to Gaya (why not, was cheap and it was my first time in India). The attendants were very kind, unusually so, and it was only after getting off the train that it finally clicked why one attendant kept saying with a loving smile, "gips, gips" -- he wanted a tip like I'd given one of the other attendants! (who was able to speak basic English and asked for a tip)
It was a nice journey, though the Gaya train station at 4AM, nothing prepares you for that, weaving through 500 homeless people sleeping on the ground; emerging from the mass of humanity to inhale the thick, dusty, diesel saturated air, on the way to Bodh Gaya, the Bodhi Tree, the birthplace of Buddha's awakening -- welcome to India :)
The strange part is that I'm Indian and I would never think of traveling to Gaya because of where it's located (the state of Bihar has a poor reputation).
Bodh Gaya is actually pretty nice. It's almost like an oasis of tranquility in the middle of Bihar's chaos. But still, there's no way I'm ever going to Bihar again!
Gaya train station was far and away the most intense experience I had in the 2 months I spent traveling through the north. Well, breaking my hip falling off a scooter trying to avoid a massive black bull cow running at me in Rishikesh was the most intense experience of my existence to-date, but the Gaya station was seriously hard core on the normal traveler's experience level.
On the return from Bodh Gaya the midnight train to Varanasi was delayed...by 5 hours. Being the only foreigner I was concerned for my safety, but then realized the safest place was down on the ground with everyone else, and definitely not wandering outside the station.
Just to give you an idea of Bihar - the state where Gaya is located - its per capita income is $2,170 (PPP), while Delhi's is $18,000+ (PPP). It's absurdly poor and all the old stereotypes about India still thrive there.
This site was indispensable for when I traveled throughout Europe. Most useful was the detailed information about reaching Pompeii from Rome https://www.seat61.com/places-of-interest/day-trip-to-pompei... It's easy in retrospect, but finding the Circumvesuviana train is tricky if you don't know what you're doing
This website is indispensable and the guy who runs it is such a train fan. It’s amazing and he’s been enthusiastic to receive updates for the site whenever I’ve gone far enough afield to fill in a number or piece of information he hasn’t gotten a chance to track down yet, or grab a photo of a station he hasn’t seen in a bit that’s changed, etc.
Whenever I go to a country I spend some time on seat61 looking up the local train system. For a number of systems without websites, seat61 is the place where you can find the information about what trains go where before you get there and it’s just slowly (actually surprisingly quickly, all things considered) populated as people find out various pieces from ticket agents on site or physical boards posted at stations and email bits and pieces in.
I used this site and the book to plan a rail trip around Europe when I was about 25 (young enough to get the discounted rail card). It was great fun and I used so much of the useful information on the site every day.
This site recently helped me a lot in a tourism travel to Europe.
The general info is googlable, but it helped my choose a seat that was facing forward and positioned in the middle of a window. A very relevant information for me and my wife wanting to observe the world while traveling. And an information that we wouldn't be able to google.
I learned about it years ago here in HN I believe. It would be hard to find by myself googling something like this too
Agree with all commenters here what a fantastic site this is - up-to-date (by and large), information dense, no nonsense.
Has helped me travel from Bali to Jakarta, through Thailand, Namibia, and with the TransSib.
A labour of love. So I wondered how one can support the guy, and was amazed that the only thing he asks for is donations to UNICEF in his name, see link below. Kudos kudos kudos.
Seems to be the main source (as you’d imagine). From About:
> Is the site a hobby or a business?
> Seat61.com is a personal website, started as a hobby. It's grown and grown, and became my full time occupation in September 2007. However, I'm not a company or a travel agency, just an individual with knowledge that others might find useful. All the information on the site is provided free of charge to users, to help people make journeys by train or ship instead of flying, affordably, comfortably and safely. The site generates income through affiliate schemes, and this supports the site, helps fund my travel habit (...er, I mean research, of course) and buys me the occasional bottle of my favourite Chateau Musar...
Used this site for various European adventures that were significantly more fulfilling and stress free vs not having this resource. Donated £30 to the cause. Thank you to the Man in Seat Sixty-One!
> Has helped me travel from Bali to Jakarta, through Thailand, Namibia, and with the TransSib.
"TransSib" here is the Trans-Siberian Railway, travelled via the eponymous train. You may know: Siberia is in Russia – as is most of the journey via the railway.
The site clearly has a link to rail travel in Russia on the first page, and clearly any international train site worth it's salt is going to have one of the most famous train journeys of all time on there (indeed it's got it's own page)
So clearly the parent wasn't talking about the site covering Russia as a subject.
This site has been a life saver on so many trips through places like India and Africa, where the information available through official channels is often difficult to find out understand.
The existence of a functioning rail network is a big draw for me when I'm planning a backpacking trip. I'm much less likely to be ripped off for the ticket, there will be some sort of timetable, and little risk of being taken to someone's brother's shop in case I want to buy a carpet. Most importantly, it's usually at least an order of magnitude safer.
The train from Bangkok to the Thai/Cambodian border was one of the most wonderful trips I ever took. I watched movies until late at night at a mall movie theater, slept a few hours in the station, and tok t 5:55 train, watching rice paddies pass by for hours...
Love the site and used it often.
Recently I realized train is my preferred mean of transportation by far and I'm happy to be able to count on this site.
Also a strong reminder of what the internet could be.
The normal case is far better than that. Smoother, faster, you can’t get up and stretch your legs, walk to a shop (or have the shop come to you in many cases), plug in your laptop, no bouncing up and down, no car sickness when you’re reading
Doubly painful, now that people are once again more open to the use of a sleeper train to avoid flying (for environmental reasons, or just not having to deal with airports).
ÖBB took over Deutsche Bahn's sleepers, which coincided with the retiring of the last sleeper train from/to the Netherlands (bugger me). But their service does seem to be working pretty well.
I missed an opportunity to travel from Milan to Paris by Thello's sleeper train due to the railway strikes in France this year, unfortunately.
I really wish the EU or collaborating national governments would invest more in sleeper train services by taxing flights. It's much more sustainable, and the real kicker is this: yes, a train takes longer, but in a sleeper train you just wake up with a complimentary breakfast early in the morning in the middle of a city hundreds of kilometres from where you started.
Yes, a sleeper train needs to be compared to a flight + a hotel room, not just a flight alone.
DB going out of sleeper service was so sad. At least ÖBB took over some of it with their NightJet service and are replacing the rolling stock with newer cars, so is Caledonian Sleepers in the UK. Hopefully Trans Metropolitan will begin service as well to take over some of what was abandoned by DB.
As others have already said seat61.com is a rare gem on the internet. It’s an invaluable resource when traveling by train in any country. The site has helped me prepare for countless trips. Once I traveled more than 10,000 miles through 8 countries from Saigon to Amsterdam and it would have been much more difficult if it weren’t for the man in seat 61.
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[ 12.4 ms ] story [ 1990 ms ] thread- https://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/overunderlacing.htm
- https://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/straighteuropeanlacing.htm
- https://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/quicktightlacing.htm
Makes me wonder what I am doing as a corporate cog in the wheel.
I've also researched all sorts different train rides, like the journey from Shenzhen to Urumqi and the trans-siberian, neither of which I've gotten to (yet!).
Interestingly since it was only used infrequently the locals knew when the big trains were coming and would basically build their own mini motorised platforms to zip up and down the line. Two sets of wheels on axles, a bamboo "raft" that sat on top of them with a hole towards the back where a motor ran a chain down to the back axle.
I rode on one circa 2008, because it was a single line, if you met someone coming the other way you basically had to disassemble the entire thing (which probably took less than a minute) and then re-assemble once they'd passed.
It's still slow. And not completely safe; multiple cases of some dude sleeping on the tracks and the train went over them also there was a derailing. But I guess compared to the crazy regional highway traffic it still is safer. Also a great way to see the countryside.
We're left depending on the few people who have the time/energy/money to produce labors of love and charities like this. Beyond that, we're left with centralized superplatforms.
His concise monthly European rail news is also great: https://www.seat61.com/news.htm
Got a first class ticket from Kolkata to Gaya (why not, was cheap and it was my first time in India). The attendants were very kind, unusually so, and it was only after getting off the train that it finally clicked why one attendant kept saying with a loving smile, "gips, gips" -- he wanted a tip like I'd given one of the other attendants! (who was able to speak basic English and asked for a tip)
It was a nice journey, though the Gaya train station at 4AM, nothing prepares you for that, weaving through 500 homeless people sleeping on the ground; emerging from the mass of humanity to inhale the thick, dusty, diesel saturated air, on the way to Bodh Gaya, the Bodhi Tree, the birthplace of Buddha's awakening -- welcome to India :)
On the return from Bodh Gaya the midnight train to Varanasi was delayed...by 5 hours. Being the only foreigner I was concerned for my safety, but then realized the safest place was down on the ground with everyone else, and definitely not wandering outside the station.
For rail fanning /trainspotting in India, there is a fantastic community at irfca.org.
Someone make a golden statue of this guy.
Whenever I go to a country I spend some time on seat61 looking up the local train system. For a number of systems without websites, seat61 is the place where you can find the information about what trains go where before you get there and it’s just slowly (actually surprisingly quickly, all things considered) populated as people find out various pieces from ticket agents on site or physical boards posted at stations and email bits and pieces in.
The general info is googlable, but it helped my choose a seat that was facing forward and positioned in the middle of a window. A very relevant information for me and my wife wanting to observe the world while traveling. And an information that we wouldn't be able to google.
I learned about it years ago here in HN I believe. It would be hard to find by myself googling something like this too
Marketers: I hate your stupid, empty landing page.
Has helped me travel from Bali to Jakarta, through Thailand, Namibia, and with the TransSib.
A labour of love. So I wondered how one can support the guy, and was amazed that the only thing he asks for is donations to UNICEF in his name, see link below. Kudos kudos kudos.
https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/seatsixtyone
edit: And to add, I love the site! I've used to plan many trips to and between France, Spain, Estonia, Sweden and Denmark.
> Is the site a hobby or a business?
> Seat61.com is a personal website, started as a hobby. It's grown and grown, and became my full time occupation in September 2007. However, I'm not a company or a travel agency, just an individual with knowledge that others might find useful. All the information on the site is provided free of charge to users, to help people make journeys by train or ship instead of flying, affordably, comfortably and safely. The site generates income through affiliate schemes, and this supports the site, helps fund my travel habit (...er, I mean research, of course) and buys me the occasional bottle of my favourite Chateau Musar...
(Not sure what to think of that... doesn't strike me as huge. Maybe front page HN is not as "viral" as I thought?)
> Has helped me travel from Bali to Jakarta, through Thailand, Namibia, and with the TransSib.
"TransSib" here is the Trans-Siberian Railway, travelled via the eponymous train. You may know: Siberia is in Russia – as is most of the journey via the railway.
And yes, there is support for travel data in Russia: https://www.seat61.com/Russia.htm
The site clearly has a link to rail travel in Russia on the first page, and clearly any international train site worth it's salt is going to have one of the most famous train journeys of all time on there (indeed it's got it's own page)
So clearly the parent wasn't talking about the site covering Russia as a subject.
The existence of a functioning rail network is a big draw for me when I'm planning a backpacking trip. I'm much less likely to be ripped off for the ticket, there will be some sort of timetable, and little risk of being taken to someone's brother's shop in case I want to buy a carpet. Most importantly, it's usually at least an order of magnitude safer.
The train from Bangkok to the Thai/Cambodian border was one of the most wonderful trips I ever took. I watched movies until late at night at a mall movie theater, slept a few hours in the station, and tok t 5:55 train, watching rice paddies pass by for hours...
And there's no way I would have done it without https://www.seat61.com/Cambodia.htm#Siem%20Reap
It depends how sensitive you are. I get nauseous when reading even on relatively smooth inter-city trains.
Perfect.
Sad that many of these international sleepers have recently shut down.
ÖBB took over Deutsche Bahn's sleepers, which coincided with the retiring of the last sleeper train from/to the Netherlands (bugger me). But their service does seem to be working pretty well.
I missed an opportunity to travel from Milan to Paris by Thello's sleeper train due to the railway strikes in France this year, unfortunately.
I really wish the EU or collaborating national governments would invest more in sleeper train services by taxing flights. It's much more sustainable, and the real kicker is this: yes, a train takes longer, but in a sleeper train you just wake up with a complimentary breakfast early in the morning in the middle of a city hundreds of kilometres from where you started.
Why? If sleepers are so desirable, then the market should support them.
DB going out of sleeper service was so sad. At least ÖBB took over some of it with their NightJet service and are replacing the rolling stock with newer cars, so is Caledonian Sleepers in the UK. Hopefully Trans Metropolitan will begin service as well to take over some of what was abandoned by DB.