Perhaps we were too quick to judge...

... the trains.  It looks like the quality of your carriage is pretty random, and based on whether you get an old or a new carriage.  From the looks of it, tourists usually get clustered in the one (new) carriage, so perhaps we just got very very unlucky with our train from Moscow to Irkutsk. 

The trip from Irkutsk to Ulan-Baatar wasn't too bad - only 33 hours long and starting at 10pm rather than past midnight.  Unfortunately, our entire daylight time was spent sitting at the border stations waiting for various passport control and customs people of both counties, and the scenic parts of the trip (around Lake Baikal and coming into Mongolia) were all under cover of night, which was a bit of a bummer.

Here's a few photos.

Somewhere while we were sleeping, the back of the train was detatched and we ended up as the last carriage.  This is the view out of the back of the train, driving through Russia (close to the Mongolian border).

The inside of our new deluxe carriage - the seat backs folded down to reveal your mattress, and there were compartments in the little section above the seat back for your stuff.  It even had a TV (although there was never anything showing.)

Our little red carriage waiting all by its lonesome for a train to come and take it across the border.  We were the only carriage continuing on from the Russian border station to Mongolia - so we were towed across the border all by ourselves, and then attached to the back of a Sukh-Baator to Ulan-Baator train.  In case you're wondering, Russian Passport Control and Customs wasn't bad at all - they hardly paid any attention to us.  (We were missing a couple of days registration and were concerned, but it wasn't a problem.)  The Lonely Planet book had said that they might raise issues with our electronics and make us pay tax on them, but it didn't happen - no problems at all on either side of the border :)

At least we had some company on the Russian border station - there was an entire train full of tanks next to us!  (Stephen covertly took this photo.)  Does anyone know what kind of tanks these are?