{{Short description|International rail transportation of individuals without passing through customs}} {{Use dmy dates|date=September 2020}} [[File:Lenin Sealed Train Map.svg|thumb|Map of Lenin's 1917 journey in a sealed train]]
A '''sealed train''' is one that travels internationally under customs and/or immigration seal, without its contents legally recognized as entering or leaving the nations traversed between the beginning and end of the journey or subject to any otherwise applicable taxes.{{Citationneeded|date=April 2024}}
==Background== The most notable use of a sealed train was the return of Vladimir Lenin to Russia from exile in Switzerland in 1917—in fact, that particular journey was not a true sealed train, because the passengers disembarked to spend the night in Frankfurt<ref>{{Cite web |last=Ted Widmer |date=2017-04-20 |title=Lenin and the Russian Spark |url=https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/lenin-and-the-russian-spark |access-date=2019-11-26 |website=The New Yorker}}</ref>—but the practice was used a number of other times throughout the 20th century to allow the migration or transport of controversial individuals or peoples. For instance, sealed trains were used for repatriation of combatants in the Spanish Civil War,<ref>{{Cite book |last=Rosenstone, Robert A. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SR40wrSV5IgC&pg=PA337 |title=Crusade of the Left |publisher=Transaction Publishers |isbn=978-1-4128-2080-6 |pages=337}}</ref> Jewish emigration from Nazi Germany to the United States,<ref>{{Cite news |last=Staff |date= 1941-02-16 |title=Hundreds of Jews Leave Reich in Sealed Train to Emigrate Overseas |work=Jewish Telegraphic Agency |url=https://www.jta.org/1941/02/16/archive/hundreds-of-jews-leave-reich-in-sealed-train-to-emigrate-overseas |access-date= 2014-05-04}}</ref> and expulsion of East German refugees to West Germany.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Protzman |first=Ferdinand |date= 1989-10-06 |title=Jubilant East Germans Cross to West in Sealed Trains |page=8 |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1989/10/06/world/jubilant-east-germans-cross-to-west-in-sealed-trains.html}}</ref>
==References== {{reflist}}
==See also== *Privileged transit traffic
Category:Trains
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