This Train's Okay, but Not as Good as Last Year's

I love taking the train, and for me, it's usually the best way to get to places that are hard to reach by other means. Whether I'm traveling for fun or just need to get somewhere, I want to arrive feeling good and in decent shape. In this review, I'll be talking about train number 15/16 from Moscow to Volgograd. I first took this train over 10 years ago, and my last trip was in January 2022. Now, just a year later, in January 2023, I was back on this train.

On January 14th, 2023, I boarded train 15/16 to Volgograd at Moscow's Pavélétskaya station. Right off the bat, I noticed that this train didn't look like the one I was on a year ago. The last cars were from an older model series (61-4179), which were built in large quantities by the Tver Wagon-Building Plant until 2008. After that, they continued to produce a small number of these cars until the new model series was introduced. I'm not sure exactly when production stopped.

The sleeping cars, however, were all from the new model series. One of the notable features of these cars is the automated doors, a new body design, and the fact that both toilets are located at the end of the car.

Our car number 7 was a sleeping car. I'll be honest, the sleeping cars from the old model lineup aren't the oldest around - we had a car from Ammenhof, built in 1991, that had just gone through a major overhaul. This isn't your average car, though - it's a 26-seat car with spots for passengers with disabilities.

Inside, the car looks like this - the plastic trim is a bit off, though - the original stuff had a slightly different shade.

Car number 8, near the toilets - and, yes, the toilets were still there.

Okay, fine - our car was a platzkart under number 7. At first glance, it's just another car - nothing special, really. Yeah, it's from the new model lineup, and it's got toilets in one part of the car.

Seats 28 to 32 were pretty much the same as the rest of the train. I was seated in the upper deck, and to be honest, the old mattresses were a bit of a letdown. The side seats, 39 and 40, looked pretty standard. So far, I haven't found anything to complain about - the train's a train, and for a non-high-end train, it's actually pretty decent. The linen, included in the ticket price, was your standard issue: towel, blanket, etc. Quality was good. The corridor outside the toilets. Honestly, judging by the state of the floor, the train's not exactly new - maybe not the first few batches, but definitely not three to five years old. And there were some scuffs, scratches, and scuffs here and there. Okay, now let's take a look at the toilets:

The toilets were clean, and there were no unpleasant odors.

The toilet paper was stocked, and it's actually of good quality - soft, to be honest. You can find cheaper, harsher paper in some of the less reputable trains.

The soap was also replenished, which hasn't always been the case for me.

The conductor double-checked our documents, was polite, and let us know the essential information. Then, he started cleaning the carriage. There were power outlets for charging our phones everywhere, except for the upper side seats.

However, the USB ports for charging phones were on the upper shelves, not the side ones. I checked personally, and they worked fine. The corridor leading to the compartment was a bit of a letdown, to be honest. The route map was torn off the door, and it looked pretty ugly. I mean, you could've just stuck it back on with some Scotch tape, if that's all it needed. One thing that stood out to me was the number of stops this train makes. It's a big deal for people heading to rural centers in places like Lipetsk, Tambov, Voronezh, and Volgograd. I mean, on the Goryachiye-Voronezhskie to Ilovlya route, there are only three passenger trains, and this one is the only one that stops at those stations. Plus, the schedule for the train from St. Petersburg to Volgograd isn't exactly convenient for people traveling from Moscow or Volgograd.

And finally, the corridor and toilet in the compartment car were in surprisingly good shape, considering the age of the train. The toilet in compartment car 9 The sink.

I've taken this train to Tokarevka station, and it's been really convenient in terms of departure and arrival times to get to that village in Tambov Oblast. However, the train's carriages aren't all new; some are in decent shape, while others are worse off. But a year ago, when I took the same train to Gribanovsky village, it was all made up of brand-new carriages.

Train number 15/16 in January 2022 at Gribanovsky station. All the carriages were new at the time. Even the sleeping car was a bit of a mixed bag: the carriage's condition is shown above, and I also forgot to mention that the windows didn't ventilate properly – I slept well, though. Still, I had a few photos of this train from last year, and on one of them, I found a carriage that looked even older, which had probably been attached as a replacement. It's worth mentioning that you can still take this train, although you might occasionally get stuck with older carriages. I've seen trains that were a lot worse, though. If you're traveling from Moscow to Volgograd (or back to Zhurdeyka, Borisoglebsk, and so on), it's probably better to take train number 1/2 – it's mostly made up of new carriages, even with a shower. On the day I took this train, though, there were a couple of old cars.