Changing the Bogies
Generally, the Russians make me nuts. But then they come up with solutions to complex problems that stagger me because they are so simple
In the MIR Space Station, NASA spent a reported 12.5 million dollars inventing the Space Pen - the pen that writes even upside down, so that astronauts would be able to take notes in zero gravity.
Presented with the same issue, the Russians just shrugged and handed out pencils.
This beautiful simplicity was brought to me again at the Chinese Mongolian border. The Russians, with their huge country of largely undefended borders, were worried about invasion overland, particularly by train.
So, they made different train tracks. Fully 2.3 feet wider than any other train in the world, Russian tracks would be impossible to use by any other nation. With the notable exception of Mongollia, as Russia built the rail network in that country.
As a result, when we got to the Chinese/Mongolian border, each of our coaches needed to be brought into a special shed where the bogies (wheels) were replaced. It was fascinating, even if it was 1am and our coach was in eerily and very disconcertingly suspended in mid air while the wheels were replaced
