From Randy
I am big on trains. I study them, ride when possible and dream.

Hi Randy.
So am I.
Since I discovered the German Bahn web site train ride planner (see below), I often use it to dream to improbable train, travels, including the legendary trans-siberian route; the German Bahn web site has almost everything European and Russian in its database, except, probably, the very special "private" train we are speaking about between Venice, Italy, and Paris, France.

https://reiseauskunft.bahn.de//bin/query.exe/el

+-------------------------+--------+--------+----------+
| Station | Arr. | Dep. | Train No |
+-------------------------+--------+--------+----------+
| Paris Est | | 18:55 | TGV 2077 |
| Strasbourg | 20:41 | 22:00 | EN 453 |
| Moskva Belorusskaja | 10:53 | | transfer |
| Moskva Iaroslavskaja | | 23:45 | D 2SZ |
| Vladivostok | 23:55 | | |
+-------------------------+--------+--------+----------+
| Duration: 196:00 hours

Look at the above web link and try to organize your future trip from Paris, France, to Vladivostok, Russian federation: the German robot will give you the answer, immediately

------------------

From Jim
I THINK the train goes through Innsbruck but I'm not 100% sure. Some of them do, but from looking at their map it also seems that some don't.

Thanks Jim, so very probably you'll cross the border between Italy and Austria at the Brenner pass. Much better than a tunnel; as far as sightseeing goes! However there is a major rail tunnel project to connect Italy to Austria by a record-length tunnel, the Brenner Base Tunnel.
Before that, you'll cross the DURST country at Bozen-Bolzano (the area is named Alto Adige in Italian, Südtirol (South Tyrol), as Austrians say, this is an old and painful European story; one century old, from WW-I; I let you discover what happened at the time) near Bolzano and then go to Inssbruck, then the Arlberg rail tunnel (opened in 1884) and then along the Walensee lake to Zurich, Switzerland.
This is a really magnificent route although you'll see nothing at night for many hours
From Zurich I'm anticipating the train to go to Basel, Switzerland and then from Basel to Paris through the conventional Basel -> Paris train line which is now less used by French railways due to the opening of a new high speed train line following another route.
But here, in such a train cruise, high speed is not an issue: comparing the speed of digital photography to the slow approach of LF photography on a tripod is irrelevant!

Nevertheless, in short, from Venice to Basel, crossing the Alps through the Brenner region, Inssbruck, Zurich, the itinerary is superb, you'll enjoy it. And if the route is eventually different, no problem, we'll try to identify the itinerary as well!

I'm looking forward to read here, in November, your report about this superb travel!