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I took the Trans MONGOLIAN last week, from Beijing to Ulaanbaatar. Getting tickets is easy.You just go into the CITS office in the International Hotel with your passport (And, I assume, visa), hand over 1,285RMB and you have your ticket. Tickets through to Moscow can be purchased at Ulaanbaatar station and I'd suggest that they'll be cheaper than buying in China. It's a Mongolian train.

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This web could be useful for you.

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Okay. Here is the situation.

From Beijing to Ulan Bator, the train only operates twice a week and you must buy the ticket through a travel agency. Tickets for foreigners are not sold at the train station. Try contacting CITS, www.cits.net or Ocean Travel, http://www.oceantravelcn.com/. Reportedly these companies are quite reliable about obtaining the tickets at a fair price. Be sure to add them to your address book so that your spam filter does not "Eat" their responses.

The alternative is to buy a ticket to the border town of Erlian (Erenhot) and then buy a supplement or take a bus, taxi or plane to Erlian, cross the border and then take a local train from the Mongolian side (Dzamyn Ude) to Ulan Bator.

From Ulan Bator to Irkutsk, you can usually buy the ticket at the train station. There is a daily slow passenger train or several times a week there is a faster, express train. Unless you plan to travel immediately after Nadaam (July 11-13), you shouldn't have a problem getting a ticket for the train when you arrive in UB. The alternative is to take the bus from UB to Ulan Ude, Russia. The bus costs less and takes half the time to travel the same distance. It leaves daily at 0700 and takes about 12 hours.

For travel wholly within Russia, you can buy your tickets online yourself directly from the rzd.ru website beginning 45 days prior to travel. Search this forum and the internet. Several people have described the process. Plus folks on this forum will help you if you get stuck.

Ruth

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One correction to what Ruth says.

The Beijing/Ulaanbaatar train actually runs 3 times a week (Well... Certainly was last week; from Ulaanbaatar to Beijing at least so it's reasonable to conclude that the same amount run it the opposite direction).

EDIT

Why are tickets "For foreigners" not sold at the station? Are tickets for Chinese sold there? It's possible (Actually very easy) for a foreigner to buy a ticket for the Vietnam train at Nanning Station. Is there a difference? If so. why is there a difference?

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I can't explain why tickets cannot be purchased at the train station but in the 15+ years that I have been following travel on this route, I have never heard of a foreigner being able to obtain tickets for the train from Beijing to UB at the train station. Why the difference from trains to Vietnam? I can't explain.

Regarding the train running from Beijing to UB. The #3/4 runs one day a week all year long. The K23/24 runs one day a week all year long. Some years there has been a second K23/24 during the summer from June until September or October but occasionally this train has not operated and the day of the week seems to vary.

Ruth

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Thanks everyone for your help!! Should definately be an adventure and will keep it in mind to give you guys a shout if we get stuck!