Keeping true to the spirit of Mongol-Chinese efficiency and cooperation, the two countries continue to maintain rail systems of different gauges. The track and wheel base is not compatible between the countries and this requires the entire train to have the wheels removed and replaced when traveling between Mongolia and China.

Personally I was very intrigued at just how they might go about doing this. I thought surely there would be some amusing process that would seem completely counterintuitive to my western brain. I was not disappointed.

The art of inefficiency and WTF methodology is alive and well in the Mongol-Chinese train yards. On the one hand, you have Mongolia with very few people and a strong desire to do everything using traditional methods and livestock as the source of power. On the other side you have China were its important to let 10 people with the wrong tools do the job of one person with the right tools. Couple this with a common regional attitude that close enough is good enough and you certainly have the making for an interesting process. Just outside of Erenhot on the Chinese side of the border there is a rail house where this process is completed twice a day.

It starts by separating the train into 3-4 car segments and rolling them into the lift house on separate tracks side by side. In the lift house are huge hydraulic lifts alongside each car. The lifts are positioned at the 4 corners of each car an then the mechanism that holds each set of wheels to the car is uncoupled by a man with a big pry bar and no small amount of banging under the train.

Next, each car is lifted and the wheels from each car – which are still coupled to each other – are pulled out. We were not allowed off the train, but we could watch from the end window of each car as the wheels passed along underneath us and we were left suspended in the air. Then new wheels were rolled under the car, this time individual sets of wheels were attached one by one to each car.

Following this, we were lowered again. After several minutes of metallic banging under the train and we had new wheels.

The final step is to push the train cars back together and assemble the train again. The entire process filled with plenty of yelling, standing around, red fluid (I can only assume brake fluid?) dripping from the cars. In summary the process seems more logical than witnessing the commotion, but note the procedure takes between 3-5 hrs during which the bathrooms are locked and you can’t get off the train.

Thank god we were drinking wine not beer

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