Extract of Riding the Iron Rooster, by Paul Theroux, that I was conveniently reading on the train

"The experience of the Trans-Siberian Express is both monotony and monkish beauty: all day outside the loud hurrying train it is birch trees and undulant hills ; and after the utter blackness of night on that line, you see more birch trees and more undulant hills; and all that day too, until it seems more like wallpaper than a landscape - the kind of wallpaper that is so simple and repetitious that you look at the seams rather than the design."

have this one as well. It refers to the many time zones you cross on the train, and the fact that even in far eastern Siberia at the stations all times are based on Moscow time. It is by Mary Morris, Wall to Wall, but you will have to excuse the inaccuracies as it was translated into French and i translated it back into English.

"No one on the train knew what the time was. Some said that the train travelled according to Moscow time, but respected the local time zone! Half the passengers lived on Beijing time and a diplomat was on Tokyo time, which is identical to Ulan bator time. Our Chinese steward would put his watch forward 15 minutes every few hours, according to a system of his own invention."