Free early morning train rides in Singapore

If you are in Singapore after June 24, you can take the MRT into the city center for free if you arrive between 7 and 8 am. There are also discounts for people who arrive in the city center between 7:45 and 8 am. The Transport Ministry wants to spread out Singapore's rush hour. The Ministry is also supporting telecommuting initiatives.

The free rides are estimated to cost about $10 million Singapore dollars (about $8,000 US). It is predicted that 10 to 20% of riders will shift their commutes.

There is some controversy about this decision.

In favor

Opposed

In the Category of Creepy but Interesting

There is going to be rail-only tour of North Korea this September by an organization called Juche Travel Services which is apparently run by a British citizen called David and is based out of the London area.

The rail tour starts in Beijing on September 20, crosses  the border of North Korea the morning of the 22nd and arrives in Pyongyang that evening. From there the tour visits Mount Myohyang, Hamhung, and Wonsan by charter train, the Chosun Explorer. Visits include temples, museums, and a fertilizer factory. While in Pyongyang, visitors ride on the Metro, thus proving that it is a real subway, even though it only has five stops.

This tour does NOT include the mass games which will be over by the time this tour begins.

Americans can visit North Korea, but not on this tour as they cannot take the Beijing-Pyongyang train. Current residents of South Korea are also prohibited, although it is OK if you have lived there in the past.

This is an opportunity to see parts of the country that very few foreigners get to see. It also is a little slower paced than some tours which visit a lot of places in short amount of time.

This tour costs 1,995 Euros. That price includes all transportation, entry fees, and hotels. It includes some meals, but not all.

Journalists are prohibited from taking any group tours. If you have a blog that has anything to do with Korea, you are considered to be a journalist. I could not go on a tour to North Korea and then write about it.

So I feel kind of ambivalent about these tours. On the one hand, it is good for people to learn more about North Korea as ignorance is dangerous. But if we are only learning from people who do not have enough context to understand what they are seeing, it makes it difficult to know what people actually saw. Also, do the people who have contact from these tours learn anything about the outside world. There is also the question of how much of the money that people pay for these trips goes to the government, and how much to the people providing the services.

For more information about traveling to North Korea in general here are some links:

Juche Travel Hints and Tips

Koryo Group Travel Advice

Reviews of other trips with Juche Travel

More Rail Plans in Central Asia

Iran-China Railroad

Pyongyang has a subway (maybe)

Patrick Chovanec visited North Korea so you don't have to. Along the way, he had the opportunity to visit Pyongyang's subway.

A Visit to North Korea

Here is hoping that North Korea becomes a place where people want to go within my lifetime.

Interested in Working Steam?

Interested in working steam? Want to visit China? John Raby has a list of reasons why you should join his tour to Sichuan Province which visits the Shibanxi line that runs from 5-15 March 2012.

"1. It's the place I chose for my 60th birthday last year because it's one of the best narrow gauge steam railways (real or preserved) in the world
2. real steam ng, trains in a landscape, friendly people, good food
3. walk everywhere and anywhere
4. no cars
5. the nicest place I know in China
6. some great little locos that think they are big, working their socks off
7. passenger, coal traffic, tourist trains, additional cargoes – pigs, refrigerators, brick, bamboo (and even corpses!)
8. five tunnels to walk through (bring a torch) and 1 reversal
9. electric coal trains and steam under the wires on the bottom section
10. haircut in Bagou, stay with the doctor in Mifeng
11. hiking trails with views of the line in the hills between Sanjing and Huangcun
12.small coal mine at Huangcun with hand tramming (and 300mm and 600mm gauge)"


This is the second time that this tour has run, so you can read about the 2011 trip on John Raby's blog. Even if you cannot take the trip, I recommend reading the blog just for the pictures and perspective on life in small-town China.

The fully refundable deposit for the tour is 400 British pounds with the tour itself priced in Chinese yuan. The main tour costs 11,000 yuan for 10 nights and is to be paid in China at the start of the tour or my bank transfer to the Chinese guide, Zebedee. Minus the £400, that means ¥7,000 will need to be paid in China. All meals, transportation, and tours are included in this price. Most of the rooms will be singles, although you will need to pay a small surcharge to guarantee a single room every night. Tour arrangements assume that participants will fly into and out of Chengdu in western China. Apparently, this is easy for people coming from the UK, but may be more of challenge (and more expensive) if you are coming from the US.

Both pre and post tours are available at an additional, reasonable cost. (At current exchange rates, this entire tour costs less than $1,800.)

The deadline to book is February 1. Contact John Raby at jraby at linesiding.co.uk if you are interested in more information.

Tourist Monorail in Malaysia under Repair for Month

If you were thinking about traveling from Hang Tuah Station to Taman Rempah by train, you may need to wait for a month. The Sungai Melaka tourist monorail has been suspended for a month by the Land Public Transport Commission (SPAD) so that the operator can improve traction during rain and provide a way to get people down if the train stops running. SPAD recommends that operators buy a crane tool for that purpose. Right now the company uses a ladder.

SPAD also recommends getting a manual in a language that repair workers can read. The monorail was imported from China and the operating instructions are not currently available in either English or Bahasa which has had a tendency to delay repairs.

The suspension has not been popular with the local government. This service was inaugurated by Melaka Chief Minister Datuk Seri Mohd Ali Rustam a year ago which probably means that he could be politically damaged if there continue to be problems with the service. Of course, it is probably better for him if the train gets fixed, and people come to feel that it is reliable. Two British tourists were among those stranded on Wednesday and action needs to be taken to prevent bad publicity among international visitors.

A new way to buy tickets for Vietnamese trains

A Vietnamese travel agency has created a new website, Vietnam Train Tickets, to help foreigners buy train tickets between five cities: Hanoi, Sapa, Ho Chi Minh City, Hue, and Da Nang. You can get schedules for trains between those five cities as well as buy tickets for travel in all classes. You can also buy tickets for special cabins between Hanoi and Sapa, most of which are run by Sapa hotels.

How to get to Singapore's new international railway station

Trains that go to Singapore now leave from Woodlands Train Checkpoint right next to the border with Singapore. Bus 950 goes to and from MRT Marsiling which is in walking distance. Buses 160 and 170 connect the station with Kranji MRT. Be careful about the 170 buses if you are coming from Kranji, not all the 170's go to the train station. There several other buses that stop on Woodlands Road near the station entrance most of these go to Woodlands MRT, but I don't know which side of the street send buses in that direction.

To find the station location on Google Maps, you need to enter Woodlands Crossing, Singapore which is what Google thinks the station is named. If you enter the stations actual address, Google sends you to another location in Woodlands.

There have been complaints about a lack of toilets in the new facility, so be careful about that. Are there bathrooms in the MRT stations?

And now for a video in which immigration and transport officials talk about the change. I am concerned that the transit guy does not think that they need more buses:



Hopefully, light rail will connect to the station by 2018 as planned.

Looking for Blogs That are Updated Frequently?

The National Blog Posting Month posts a list every month of blogs that are updated every day. This month the theme is "Fan". Let's hope that we get some rail fans posting.

Free Tram Rides for a Day in Hong Kong

Today is the 150th Anniversary of the Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce. To celebrate, they are paying the fare of anyone who takes the tram from Western District and Shau Kei Wan. Ferries between Central and Tsim Sha Tsui will also be free. 1,000 passengers will also get sets of the stamps being issued by the Hongkong Post to commemorate the chambers history.

Good on them for helping people get to work and school. June 9 is a Thursday, a work day.

Traveling by train in northern Japan (links)

Here are some links for information about how the earthquake and tsunami are impacting trains in northern Japan.

Earthquake Info in English @wiki: Transportation Status

Pictures and Discussion of the Damage

Service south and west of Tokyo has not been distrupted. Unfortunately, this catastrophe occurred in the center of northern Japan, damaging routes between Tokyo and Sendai and points north.

Here We Go Again

News in March from Southeast Asia: Kuala Lumpur again announces that they are going to have one smartcard that will work on all trains, and Jakarta restarts and then shelves their monorail project in a single week because Indonesia apparently does not invest in infrastructure.

My prediction: Kuala Lumpur will gradually add services to its smartcard system, and make an major announcement for each one. Malaysia will have full rail connectivity, including one high speed rail line, before Jakarta even starts on a public transportation system. If I am wrong, I hope that it is Indonesia that proves me wrong. Lots of Indonesian citizens would benefit from more infrastructure investments.

Here is a link with a little history of Kuala Lumpur's buses and trains: The Integrated Approach to Solving Transportation Woes and a video of Kuala Lumpur's monorail (which should have been a conventional train so it could have been expanded and connected into the rest of the rail system).

New train improves connections between Tainan and high speed rail

from Railway Gazette Int'l

Tainan has nominally had a high speed rail station for four years, but the station is on the outskirts of town. Until this month a single bus that took at least fifty minutes from downtown Tainan was the only transit connection to the station. But that changed on January 14 when the Shalun line opened, running from Zhongzhou Station on the new Shalun Station with an additional new station at Chang Jung Christian University. Shalun Station is connected to Tainan's high speed rail station by a 34m walkway. It appears that most trains will start actually start at Tainan Main Station, although some trains will start in north Tainan County.

The line is part of plans by Taiwan's Railway Administration to use its normal speed trains to improve travel within regions and within metro areas and to help people connect with the high speed train for intercity travel. It was fairly expensive to build. In the 1990's, transportation projects in Taiwan had a tendency to spend more on corruption than actual construction. Things improved immensely during the past decade, leading to the completion of the Taipei metro and other important transportation projects. Let us hope that the high cost of this line is a hold-over from the past or a result of unusual technical difficulties, not an indication of future trends.

Upcoming rail trips to Asia

There are two rail trips being planned that I know about. The first is ground transit only with no flights within the country being visited. The second only has a single flight.

In March, John Raby is hosting a trip to the Leshan region in southern Sichuan to ride on a steam passenger line as well as visit coal railways in the area. The tour will be kept small (10 people max) to allow all participants to directly experience China and to encounter regular people along the way. This is very much an unpackaged tour and as such involved lots of real Chinese food and the ability to walk up to 10km a day over uneven surfaces. The trip also involves lots of flowers along the track; the trip is being planned for the beginning of March for flowers and the (possibly) good weather.

Shibanxi and Mojiang Narrow Gauge Coal Railways 7 - 17 March 2011

ends and starts in Chengdu, Sichuan Province

aprox. £ 1000 ($1550)

Airfare from London (through Amsterdam) is available for £571.

Americans can get to Chengdu by flying to Beijing and then taking a train.

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Farrail is running a tour of steam engines used in the sugar industry. This tour is all rail except for a flight at the end from Surabaya to Jakarta. This trip would be good for someone who is interested in how things work.

Where should I go?

I am planning my next trip, and I am wondering where you think I should go.

Should I go investigate China's new high-speed trains? I am curious to see if the system is as extensive as it looks on the map. I have never heard of anyone actually taking some of them. Even if the system is not as extensive as it looks, I will get to go to Wuhan by high-speed train, and Wuhan is awesome.

Should I take the train from Singapore to Thailand, investigating Malaysia's rail system on the way? I might actually be able to take the train into Cambodia, although that may still be a freight-only line.

Should I investigate Vietnam's railways? At least one new intercity rail line has opened in the last year along with some new commuter track in the major cities. Vietnam may have a lot more possibilities in a couple of years, though.

How about Siberia? I have heard that winter is the best time to go.

Any ideas are welcome. What would you like to read about?

China working on Silk Road 2.0

In the past few years, governments throughout Asia have worked together on the Silk Road project to create freight and passenger rail links between each other and Asia. A major links include a line Singapore through Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam then up north into China and a line though Russia into the central Asian countries that used to be part of the USSR to Iran and Turkey.

It looks like China may be looking to support rail links that bypass a couple of its traditional enemies. It looks like Chinese money is available to support a high-speed rail link with Thailand and an ordinary speed rail link to Vientiane, Laos. Both of these lines would run through Myanmar. They are also supporting a high-speed rail link between India and Pakistan.

The project that is probably farthest along is the project in Laos. Questions have arisen about the nationality of the workers and the origin of the goods that will be transported by the railways. If most of the workers who build the tracks are Chinese, and most of the goods that are transported are Chinese, some people wonder if this railway will actually benefit Laos.Some of these may be genuine concerns and some may be simple xenophobia.

I have concerns because China is loaning the money to Laos. These are not grants. Many underdeveloped countries are in trouble because they went into debt for projects that did not bring economic development. This is especially a concern for Laos because very few Laotians have the skills necessary to work on a project like this. Right now the plans are to import large numbers of Chinese rather than educate locals for these jobs.

Who is going to operate these trains when they are finished? It is my understanding that the train that connects the border near Vientiane with Thailand is actually run by the Thailand's railways. Now this railway has apparently spurred enough development in the area to pay for its construction. People who used to be subsistence farmers are now able to sell excess crops and some crafts. But these are people who are geographically close to major urban centers. Some people are in fact carrying their goods into Thailand rather than taking the train. Is similar development possible in more isolated areas?

I hope so. I also hope that the government of Laos acts in the best interests of its citizens and demands that China pay for infrastructure for which they are the primary beneficiaries. Laos should also look for other funding for any railways they would like to build. There are other sources of revenue.

Hanoi is expanding its Metro

On September 25, Hguyen Tan Dung, the Prime Minister of Vietnam, attended the groundbreaking ceremony for Hanoi's third subway line, and yesterday the project received an additional 73 million Euros in financing. A couple more subway lines are in the planning stages. The third line is projected to transport 200,000 people a day which are good numbers for a 12.5km line.

Vietnam's rail system is slowly improving. Should I visit and report back here?

Anyone going to Gansu?

I was talking with the owner of a Chinese restaurant in Portland, and I asked him if any of his American (or Korean or Canadian or etc.) friends had travled to China by train and would like to write about it. He asked me to encourage my readers to travel to Gansu in northwest China to help the economy there. The government of China is powerful, but the people are still struggling.

Gansu is beautiful and ethnically diverse. If you cannot visit, you can taste the food in Portland at Frank's Noodle 822 NE Broadway.

Afghanistan plans to join the Asian rail network

Good news: Afghanistan has developed a national rail plan based on the lines that are already being built and the international support that those lines have already received. The Asian Development Bank is financing most of the cost of a freight line from Hayratan, Uzbekistan to Mazar-i-Sherif in northern Afghanistan.

There are plans to extend this line to a line being built by Iran to the Afghan border near Herat. There might be a branch to Turkmenistan. Northern Afghanistan is relatively stable, so this line is realistic.

In addition, the Chinese may finance a line from Mazar-i-Sherif to Kabul that would continue on to Jalalabad and the border with Pakistan. This line would have to go through area where there is fighting which reduces the likelihood of its ever being built. However, if the Chinese provide grants )like for the line that is being built to Mazar-i-Sherif) construction might inject enough money into the local economy to create stability.

(This post was based on several articles from the Railway Gazette International.)

Future Express: A TV show that takes place on trains

Future Express is a series of documentaries that show on Link TV. Each show is made up of interviews on a train ride through a single country. Usually the filmaker Rob Hof, rides from one end of the country to the other.

Click the links to watch the shows that cover Asia:

Indonesia - Silent Anger

India - Path to My Dreams

Turkey - Rejected Love (I particularly like this one.)

Rob Hof has also done a 13 episode documentary about a train trip from Vietman to Turkey that I have not seen yet. If anyone has, I would love to hear what they think of it.