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I enjoy travelling to remote places and to places that can be accessed by train or boat but not by car. What passenger train station is furthest from any regular road?

By regular road, I mean a publicly accessible road, connected to the main network of roads on the continent or island, maintained to be accessible by regular passenger cars year-round (barring extreme weather).

For the sake of this question, I will measure "furthest" as train kilometres to the nearest scheduled (flag) stop reachable by road. In other words, if one drives as far as possible, then how many more km must one at minimum do by train to get there? Freight-only railway lines don't count because I can't travel there as a tourist.

For example, the train station in Labytnangi is apparently 575 km by train from the nearest regular road in Pechora (the distance by boat is probably longer as I'm not sure if there are regular roads north of Priobye, I speculate taking a car by boat may be cheaper than by train). There are closer roads but one cannot drive a regular passenger car to Moscow, Madrid, or Manchuria from there, or at least not year round. Although the Obskaya-Bovanenkovo line is even more remote, it does not have regular passenger traffic.

This makes it more remote than Churchill, which is „only“ 298 km from Gillam, which appears to have a road connection.

Is Labytnangi a record, or are there train stations from which one need to travel more than 575 km by train to reach the nearest regular road?

Related but different question: What is the most remote railway line in the world?

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    While this might be quite interesting, I don't see how it fits into 'practical, answerable questions based on actual problems that you face.'
    – user104139
    Oct 2, 2019 at 8:46
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    @TheRoadLessTravelled There's plenty of precedence of this type of question on Travel SE.
    – gerrit
    Oct 2, 2019 at 8:46
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    @TheRoadLessTravelled In particular, it is travel related if I want to travel to such a place. It is not unusual for travellers to look for extremes, to seek out the highest, northernmost, southernmost, or most remote places.
    – gerrit
    Oct 2, 2019 at 9:03
  • I do not think they qualify as most remote (and can not check right now) but I remember a series of 'railway access only' stops on the train lines west from Toronto.
    – Willeke ♦
    Oct 2, 2019 at 10:19
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    Using a "flag stop" makes it harder. Via Rail (at least in years past) would stop the trans-Canada train at any place (at least in rural Ontario) pre-selected by a passenger to get off or get on; I think the Alaska Railway will do the same.
    – DavidRecallsMonica
    Oct 2, 2019 at 14:41

2 Answers 2

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There's a station Karskaya, on Gazprom private railway I assume, which is further 400 km away from Labytnangi:

https://www.openstreetmap.org/?mlat=70.3164&mlon=68.3899#map=12/70.3164/68.3899 Which makes it 750 km away from Pechory, as crow flies. However, there may be some service roads here and there.

I don't think you can buy a ticket to go there, but it does carry personnel according to Wikipedia, which would make it passenger station to some extent.

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There is also an interesting case of Khasan-Pyongyang.

Russia has no direct road connection to North Korea but it has rail link via common border, and it has passenger traffic on it, I think you can still buy a ticket to Pyongyang.

This means that, as far as Russian road & rail network is concerned, Pyongyang is a station that is 590 km from any road. You could go through China but it's an entirely different story, since North Korea is not a country easily accessed by road at will.

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  • Interesting, but not what was asked. The OP asked about a train station from which "...one need to travel more than 575 km by train to reach the nearest regular road" I'd say the "nearest regular road" by the Pyongyang station is right outside the station.
    – DavidRecallsMonica
    Oct 4, 2019 at 14:29
  • There's a road outside Labytnangi station too, it's just that it's not connected to the rest of the world. But, arguably, neither are North Korean roads.
    – alamar
    Oct 4, 2019 at 14:35
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    @alamar Is the North Korean road network not connected to the rest of Asia?
    – gerrit
    Oct 4, 2019 at 15:01
  • I think it is physically connected, but I also don't think that you can actually drive there. Come to think of it, Labytnangi are probably connected to mainland by winter or service roads, while still being inaccessible for most of the year.
    – alamar
    Oct 4, 2019 at 15:08
  • @alamar Winter or service roads, yes; my question however stated "regular road" on purpose, which I interpret to exclude winter roads.
    – gerrit
    Feb 7, 2020 at 12:24

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