Turkey's prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who opened the new line, declared it would connect "London to Beijing". The Turkish PM was perhaps getting caught up in the moment. At the moment it's a suburban railway linking both sides of Istanbul. And there's a much easier way to get to China - the Trans-Siberian Railway from Moscow to Beijing. A rail trip across Asia via Istanbul is intriguing though, says Mark Smith, founder of website The Man in Seat 61. Once bits of engineering work in Turkey are finished, you'll be able to board a train at St Pancras and - after a few connections - alight about 10 days later in Bangladesh. That's if you're not assassinated by bandits in southern Iran or al-Qaeda in Pakistan, he adds.