I rode the most extreme train on the planet — I was cleaning myself for a week

Mauritania’s legendary iron ore train draws extreme travellers from around the world (Picture: Tom Ruck)

With his face wrapped in ski goggles and a vivid green turban, Tom Ruck climbs the ladder of the wagon and takes a deep breath.

At 3am on the outskirts of a remote village in northern Mauritania, he is about to fulfil the dream of a lifetime: crossing 700km of the Sahara on top of an open-air cargo train filled with toxic dust.

‘It’s an extreme traveller’s fairytale, great for anyone who wants to create some unbelievable dad lore while they still can,’ the British content creator, 29, tells Metro as he sends us selfies from the scene.

Thick black soot cakes his skin and the desert yawns behind him. It looks like he’s auditioning for Mad Max: Sahara Edition.

But Tom, who has travelled to 103 of the 195 countries officially recognised by the UN, was captivated by this raw, unfiltered adventure, and says it’s one of the best things he’s ever done.

Mauritania’s iron ore train is one of the longest and heaviest in the world, stretching up to 3 kilometres long.

And for the intrepid travellers who hitch a ride with its cargo, it is also regarded as the most extreme.

Operated by the state mining company since 1963, the train hauls tens of thousands of tonnes of minerals across one of the harshest landscapes on Earth, trundling 17 hours from the mining town of Zouérat to the Atlantic port of Nouadhibou.

While riding on top has always been technically illegal, it is largely tolerated by the mining company.

Anyone can hop on for free. Locals use it to transport themselves, goods, even camels, but this is journey is not for the faint of heart.

There are no seats, no shelter, and no, er, facilities. But more on that later.

Tom describes it as ‘once-in-a-lifetime’ (Picture: Tom Ruck)

To get to where he needed to be, Tom flew from the UK to Spain, then on to Dakhla, a city in the occupied Western Sahara.

Budget airlines (such as Ryanair) fly there from Madrid, despite it being in breach of international law.

From there, he crossed the border and ventured deep into the heart of Mauritania, navigating the desert by 4x4s and minivans, before reaching the starting point of his adventure.

In Choum, a remote settlement in the north of the country, he found the ‘train wizard’, a local man who is ‘very in the know’ about how the whole thing works.

There are no tickets and no timetables. Just trust in a stranger to get you where you need to be.

Tom and his friends were due to leave at 8pm, but as is the way with this legendary locomotive, it never arrived.

Instead, they were woken at their traditional homestay in a hurry around 3am. They grabbed their bags, jumped in a car and sped five minutes to the track where they had a ‘five-minute window to get on’.

‘We were tired but super excited, kind of nervous, kind of a weird butterflies feeling because it was so high on all of our bucket lists,’ he says.

‘It felt like we were robbing a bank, you’re wearing masks and all the rest of it because of the iron ore and you’re slinging your bags onto trains.

‘A bit like the episode in Breaking Bad where they rob the drain, in reverse.’

How easy is it to ‘sling’ yourself on, then?

‘Very, as long as you’ve got four limbs,’ says Tom. ‘You just climb a ladder on the side of one of the carriages, and wait for it to leave.’

Then, the tough part really begins.

Up on the wagons, Tom was surrounded by massive mounds of black dust and an endless horizon.

The dust is unavoidable. He says it will get in everything (and every orifice), no matter how hard you try to keep it out.

There are no bathrooms, just a ‘toilet corner’, and the snacks you bring on board which should be ‘dry and easy to eat quickly’: biscuits, protein bars, bananas, and ‘loads of water’.

As the train rattles through the desert, the scenery is mesmerising.

Tom in Terjit, a desert oasis with palm groves and streams that is one of the most popular tourist stops in Mauritania, and a view from the train (Picture: Tom Ruck)

‘At sunrise, it’s just unbelievable. It’s barren, but the sheer size of it, and the train bending around, is crazy to see,’ Tom recalls.

The temperatures are extreme. In the day, the desert sun is brutal. By night, it can be bitterly cold, below freezing from December to February.

Tom and his pals passed the time taking photos and videos, and ‘dancing around’ until the novelty wore off and the chugging of the train rocked them to sleep on mounds of black soot.

‘Towards the end of the last few hours you do get a little bit sick of it, but I wouldn’t say bored. You keep yourself busy and you know, it’s a once in a lifetime thing,’ he says.

At the end of the line in Nouadhibou, Tom was covered in iron ore from head to toe, ‘in my ears, nose, hair, and everywhere else’.

‘It took a good four or five days of cleaning consistently to feel human again,’ he adds.

‘The train itself isn’t scary, it moves quite slowly, but if you do want to do this, I would say you need to be at a place in your life where you’re happy to be covered in iron ore for several days.’

It’s certainly not for everyone, but Tom is one of a growing number of people seeking physically punishing adventures in some of the world’s toughest places.

Earlier this year, Pinterest included ‘darecations’ as one of their top trends for 2026, reporting a 75% increase in searches for adventure tourism and forecasting a boom in ‘full-throttle, adrenaline-inspired tourism’ among Gen Z and Millennials.

Sports insurance provider SportsCover Direct, meanwhile, has seen an 182% increase in travellers taking out sports travel insurance over the past two years, with particularly strong growth in trekking, mountaineering and marathon-related travel.

Adventures like the iron ore are not easy to plan, and you definitely need to be prepared.

Six things you must bring, according to people who have been there and done it are:

Ski goggles (sunglasses are not enough to keep dust out) Headscarf (that covers as much as possible from sun and ore) Water (obviously) Layers (this is the desert, it gets brutally cold at night) Headlamp (for night time, particularly when climbing aboard) Rubbish bags (to protect valuables including phone and camera)

Not your usual packing list, but this is not your usual adventure.

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