The carriage-side sign on the Trans-Mongolian train from Ulaan Baatar to Beijing, written in Mongolian and Chinese. Mongolia still uses Cyrillic script - a legacy of its 70 years under Soviet rule. However, there is now considerable discussion about replacing this with Latin script for everyday use, partly to make use of computer technology easier, and to encourage a revival of traditional Mongolian script for artistic and historic purposes. Mongolian carriage attendants wait to welcome passengers back onto the train at one of the intermediate station stops.

Our last daylight view of Mongolia - horses running away from the train as it crosses the barren steppe.	Our last nighttime view of Mongolia.

Changing the bogies - the fascinating activity at the border crossing between Mongolia and China. Mongolian railways are 5-foot gauge, as in Russia, whereas Chinese railways are built to international standard gauge, the slightly smaller 4ft 8 1/2 inches. Rather than all the passengers having to de-camp to another train, the carriages are built so that their bogies can be detached and replaced with a new set of the correct gauge. The locomotives are not altered - the train is pushed into the shed at one end by a Mongolian locomotive, and removed at the other end by a Chinese one. Note the soldier standing guard - passengers are strictly forbidden to leave the train while it is in the shed - despite border formalities having already taken place at the station just over the border. This border crossing was remarkably easy compared with the Russia-Mongolia crossing (see Sukhbaatar). After the usual shunting to remove the Mongolian restaurant car, I drank a toast in red wine with some American friends as we crossed the border. The Mongolian guard had been a bit stroppy, telling us to take our feet off the seats even though we'd taken our shoes off. But the Chinese passport officer was quite friendly - he even spoke a little English. He did insist on checking under the beds, though, just in case anyone (presumably a midget with a hunch-back) was stowed away in the luggage bins.

Each carriage weighs about 50 tons. Four jacks lift each of the carriages, which are first separated from each other and shunted into the sheds on two parallel tracks. Passengers remain inside the carriages but can watch the activity on the carriages on the opposite track.

The bogies are pulled out from underneath the carriages by a metal rope which runs the entire length of the shed. The new bogies of Chinese gauge are then pulled in after them, and released individually by one of the workers releasing a clip attached between pairs of bogies. Finally, each bogie is man-handled to stop in exactly the correct position so that the carriage can be re-lowered, and all brake pipes and other connections re-made. The entire train is changed in under an hour before being shunted out and sent on its way through the night across Chinese Inner Mongolia towards the Great Wall and, eventually, Beijing.