Russia. Red Express: The Greatest Rail Journey from the Berlin Wall to the Great Wall of China.

Prentice Hall, 1990. Text by Michael Cordell. Photographs in color by Peter Solness. First U.S. edition. Hardcover with protected dust jacket, like new. Based on a television series produced by Captured Live Australia.  Documents a 15,000 kilometer train ride, including 10,000 on the Trans-Siberian Express across the Soviet Union, the world’s longest railroad ride. The train traveled from East Berlin through Czechoslovakia, Poland, the Baltic States and the USSR,to Beijing and the Great Wall. Cities included  Berlin, Prague, Krakow, Vilnius, Leningrad, Moscow, Novosibirsk, Vladviostok, Suifenbe, and Beijing. Includes statement by the photographer Solness, who shot with Kodachrome, about the challenges he overcame to complete this project, including working in extremely cold conditions. 255 pages.  Previously published in Australia by Simon and Schuster.  Based in Australia, Solness subsequently became a specialist in using light painting for photography.  Summary:

Red Express: The Greatest Rail Journey from the Berlin Wall to the Great Wall of China (1990) is a vivid travelogue by Australian journalist Michael Cordell, with photography by Peter Solness. The book (and the accompanying television series) documents a 15,000-kilometer odyssey across the Eurasian continent during one of the most transformative periods in modern history.

Key Narrative Elements

• The Route: The journey begins at the crumbling Berlin Wall and traverses Eastern Europe, including Poland and Czechoslovakia, before embarking on the 10,000-kilometer Trans-Siberian Express. It concludes at the Great Wall of China in Beijing.

• A World in Flux: Written just as the Cold War was ending, the book captures a unique historical "snapshot." It contrasts the euphoric surge of democracy and reunification in Eastern Europe with the somber, repressive atmosphere in China following the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989.

• Human Encounters: Cordell focuses heavily on the people he meets—from East Germans navigating their new reality to Soviet citizens facing the uncertainty of perestroika. The narrative is less about the mechanics of trains and more about the cultural and political shifts occurring outside the carriage windows.

• Visual Documentation: Peter Solness’s color photography is a hallmark of the book, capturing the stark landscapes of Siberia, the industrial grit of the Soviet republics, and the daily lives of travelers on the world’s longest railway.

• Core Theme

The book serves as a meditation on the "Red" world—the various states of socialism and communism—at a moment of total upheaval. It explores the tension between the vast, unchanging geography of the steppe and the rapid, volatile political changes of the late 20th century.

Peter Solness is an award-winning Australian photographic artist, educator, and writer renowned for his pioneering work in long-exposure light painting. Beginning his career in the 1970s capturing surf culture, Solness spent decades as a documentary photojournalist for publications like the Sydney Morning Herald and covered international subjects ranging from the Trans-Siberian Railway to Australian native trees. In the mid-1990s, he began experimenting with light painting—a technique where he operates in complete darkness using hand-held torches to illuminate chosen elements within a frame over long exposures—before fully embracing the process with the arrival of digital photography in the mid-2000s.His evocative nocturnal images transform natural environments, historical structures, and Indigenous sites into glowing, painterly compositions, earning him major honors such as the NSW Parliamentary Landscape Photography Prize. Based in Sydney, Solness remains an active teacher and artist, holding workshops at the National Art School and leading collaborative public light events to foster community creativity.