Walter:

You would recommend just go to a train station and ask for the bike transfer?

And does it work on the same train?

Well I have never done it ...

I know people who got the bike on the train with them by insisting it travel in the baggage car of the same train ... but you probably need local help to insist upon it.

Ride-on diary: 29/06/11

Yup, it worked like this for us (in 2006). After much useless running around trying to get our point through to uninterested and helpless employees, we accidentally ran into some big brass of Moscow's train station who happened to be a biker too (and parked his Goldwing in the station's warehouses). He appointed us two guys to take care of everything for us: we just rolled the bikes in the baggage car, tied them down and that was it.

The biker connection is really something in Russia. But you also need some luck.

Laurent

So I know it's a bit easier with a bicycle, as i have. But I just sent mine from Moscow to Irkutsk by train.
I used jde.ru
- was very simple. took the bike (which was boxed from the flight) to their warehouse by the tracks in moscow, paid, got a piece of paper with the tracking details, tracked it's progress online (it took about 5 days) and then picked the box with bike up in Irkutsk from their warehouse there when I arrived. Only cost 900 rubles, i.e £18 (for 28kg).

It may be almost as simple with a motorbike too...