All aboard for another look out the train window – this time the 20 hour journey south-west from Kiev, Ukraine. Our next stop was the Black Sea resort of Sochi, but due to a lack of direct services we made our way to the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don, where we would change trains.
We left Kiev at 10 pm at night, and settled into our sleeping compartment for the overnight journey. I woke up the next morning just after 8.30 am, as we stopped in the village of Чаплине (Chaplyne) in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast.
There were plenty of trains to see out the window.
Dnipropetrovsk Oblast is rich in reserves of brown coal and iron ore, so freight trains were in abundance.
With railway tracks headed every which way.
At the stations the snow clearing crews were hard at work.
Snow covered the flat and scrubby landscape.
But eventually the sun started to come out.
There was heavy industry on the horizon.
With trains kept on running through the snow.
As we passed the 1118 km mark from Kiev.
There were fields of dachas outside the cities.
Followed by garages as we headed into town.
Where the apartment blocks soon became visible.
The bright sun was a nice change.
As we neared the Russian border crossing, the train rolled through a busy marshalling yard.
Modern electric locomotives were stabled in the sidings.
As well as a number of older units.
By the time we had crossed into Russia, the sun was starting to slip from the western sky.
The cities themselves had the same Soviet look about them.
With bland concrete apartment blocks towering over the surrounding houses.
And shorter apartment buildings surrounded by fields of parking garages.
Eventually it was too dark to take any more photos, so I settled down in the compartment, until our arrival into Rostov-on-Don an hour or so later.
Footnote
For the entire journey I had my GPS datalogger running – the resulting track can be found below.
Er, I guess there was no heavy fighting ?? Surprised trains still running….
I visited Kiev back in 2012, so I was there before the fighting broke out – I just took a long time to get around to writing about it!