Seoul – Incheon

Almost a suburb of Seoul…

2 rail routes into Incheon from seoul, one is a traditional subway route linking to the suburban route, the other a suburban railway.

• Incheon subway
• Interactive Subway Map Line 1

From Seoul station you can travel to Incheon on line one in around 60-70 mins.

The central station in Incheon are Dongincheon on Line 1 and Bupyeong (to transfer to the Incheon subway)

Looking at your average station they dont seem to have the same architecture as the rest of Asia. Most have been built after 1970 and are much more functional than fasionable.

The subway system seems to also have been built without too much fashion in mind, although recent refurbishments of both rollingstock and stations stand out as fine creative examples.

These old designs are possily due to the way development took off after the Korean war. Rapid development doesnt usually go with nice design, especially during the 1970s. Very little of pre-war stations exist, fewer stand out. The notable exception is the facade of the old Seoul Station.

Bus routes to the ferry terminal.

The closest station is still around 15km from the ferry terminal, too far to walk. However there are regular buses.

Bus info is a little harder to come by.

Thankfully a wonderful public transport guide exists.

http://traffic.visitkorea.or.kr/lang/en

You can view it in Firefox, however you may need to end up in IE to view the interactive maps

There are 2 International Ferry terminals (http://english.visitkorea.or.kr/enu/TR/TR_EN_5_1_5_2.jsp)

Servicing Terminal 1 are Blue buses  12 14 24 33 36 720

Servicing Terminal 2 are Blue buses 23 24 17-1 3-1

Most routes run at 5-10 min intervals all day.

Journey time is about 15-20 mins from Dongdicheon Station

and about 60 mins from Bupyeong station or City Hall station.

China 1

Big Place many entries.

Good Guide

Good, informative blog

Tricky search for timetables

The rail system appears to be as large as most of Europe. It is hard to imagine how it works when looking at it as a whole. Breaking it down, the entire system is broken into 14 regions. All regions operate services out of 1 or 2 centers. There are also quite a few national lines crossing the country.

The official web site of the chinese rail system is impressive and very different to what we are used to. The host their own forums, mostly unmoderated comparitive to Australian forums. The impression is that there isnt much political commentary given the warning notices. But this is far from the truth, the discussion about corruption, union politics and even opinion pieces on Taiwan and eurpean systems would have lawyers running to court and forum moderators deleting content in the west. Their concern seems to be aimed a criticisms on a national or international level and comments designed to incite people. Although if you look down a couple of levels you can find plenty of criticisms leveled at national priorities.

Another interesting thing is that you can get all sorts of very detailed technical data, most of which would be classified commercial-in-confidence or not availble because of the threat of terrorism in the west, is free for anyone to view, comment on and use, you dont even have to register or pay $10 a month for the priveledge.

To get to Hong Kong is relatively simple. Get to Nanning, then Guangzhou (2 direct trains a day), from here there are direct trains to Hong Kong Hourly.

While not as fast as most of Europe, the trains cover around 250-275km in 3hrs so they are alot faster than most of Asia with its meter gauge. Hong Kong is around 800km, that works out to roughly 10-12 hours travel.

2 Direct Trains.

K366/K363 (KUNMING) – NANNING – GUANGZHU 0015 – 1150

2572/2573 NANNING – HUANGZU 1913 – 0702

1 Connection to see the line in daylight…

5502/5503 Nanning – Zhanjiang 1438 – 2045

K408 Zhanjiang West – Guangzhou 0808-1456

There is also a longer trip to the north via Hengyang

T6 NANNING-HENGYANG 0900-1921 or #1558 1901-0900

L65 HENGYANG-GUANGZHOU 0906-1520

The train classes,

For a good summary

D Class | Fastest and Newest class of train | 200-350kmh | 2+3 Seating | Also known as CHR, closest European equivalent is the German ICE 3

Z Class | Expresses with very limited stops (Zhida means non-stop) | ~120-200kmh | Sleepers | Overnight only, transit times between 9-12 hours, similar to CityNightLine trains

T Class | Express trains stopping at major cities| 120kmh | All Types of Carriage | Long distance trains (usually +1000km +12hrs), often very long and varied in composition,

K Class | Express stoping at major and regional cities | 120kmh | All Types of Carriage | Shorter distances than T Class, stopping more often

N Class | Travels within local bureau area | 120kmh | Usually seating | Similar to K class, travel within boundaries of a railway district

Numbered | All Stops | 100kmh | Usually seating only | All or most stops

Cambodia – Vietnam

Much the same as getting in. Get a bus to the border, walk then a bus to Ho Chi Minh City.

A explanation of the options and a more important warning about doing this trip can be found on the usualy trip reports.

Buses run a couple of times a day City to City with around 1-2hrs at the border for customs. Total time is 7-10hrs.

A more interesting detour to see the sights would be to catch the ferry from Phnom Penh to Chai Doc (south east).

Phnom Penh 0830 Chai Doc ~1330 or possibly 1200 – 1700 depending on what you look at.

Then a bus to Ho Chi Minh City, possibly the Mailinh Express

This takes around 5hrs.

Allow yourself 2 days to get out.

A side note, Vietnam Railways is funding a study to build a meter guage line from city to city, no details on the route, its part of the Trans Asia Railway, China also has a keen interest in this project.

Jakarta – Bandar Lampung

After a few days exploreing the city

• Ekonomi class train to Merak

KA MERAK JAYA
0835 | 1137

Ferry terminal opposite station

Following this guide.

• An hour to cross the strait by ferry (every 30 mins of so)
• 2 hours by bemo to Tanjungkarang
• Need to decide to catch the overnight train (Ekonomi) or stay over and catch the day train.

View Larger Map

Jakarta

View Larger Map Jakarta Kota Station

Jakarta Kota Terminal was built by the dutch back in 1870. From the outside it looks a little run down. But inside it echos back to cathedral like halls of major european stations of the era. The more central Gambir Station is quite a contrast, an elevated through station, it serves as a major terminus for long distance trains traveling to the south via Bandung.

Another big city with a wealth of transport options.
Although the city streets are some of the most crowded on earth.

Visit the abandoned Monorail. Real life meets The Simpsons?

There is also a series of busways under the banner of TransJakarta.
They operate as a series of seperate road corridors crossing the capital, it is a quick and easy method of getting a high density service without having construction costs of something like light rail. I understand that that kind of system does have some drawbacks, the desity of service cannot match that of light rail and unless you modify the buses you can only handle small peak loads.
Brisbane, Australia has a very similar system.

The commuter rail system is famouse for its images of people riding the roof, front side of the trains, although during the day you would not normally see this, peak hour in a city of millions tend to have that effect.

Found another source of information, skyscrapercity, originally about, you guessed it, skyscraper development it now branches out into all things on the development front including transport. It occured to me that I need to work on including more links. As for every post I might visit 30-40 web sites there is alot of quantity missing.

Sydney – Darwin Alt Route

It occured to me there is a couple of other ways to get to the exit port of Darwin.
Countrylink timetables give you some tributaries to follow.
From Sydney head…

South - to Melbourne,

• then take The Overland to Adelaide.
• Not that creative

North to Brisbane on one of the XPT’s, but be warned these dont have the best reputations amongst Australian train travellers, they look flash in the pictures but drunken parties aren’t uncommon.

• You can either go directly to Roma Street Station or change to a bus on the Casino XPT or Grafton XPT service. daily ~15hrs (arr 22:31 bus or 0630 xpt)

or to really get funky, well as funky as public tranport goes
North West to Lightning ridge,

dep Sydney 0710 on the daily XPT.
join you bus connection at Dubbo 1430
and finally arrive in Lightning Ridge at 2203

Dep Lightning Rydge with Kynoch Coaches at 0700 –T–F-
arrive in Toowoomba at 2200

Brisbane is ont 1h30m from here by bus

Its probably the only chance you will get to see some rural Australia.

From Brisbane you do what you did in Sydney and catch a multitude of services to an outer point, in this case I would choose Nambour (1h30m) or Cooroy/Noosa (2h), and catch the night time Tilt.

• From Roma Street its on to the Sunlander
  to Townsville.
  S-T-T– 0900|0900 (then 2 nights stay)
• or the much newer Cairns Tilt Train. -M-W-F- 1825|1205 (direct connection)
  
• Then take the Inlander to Mt Isa 1240|0935 +1 S—T–
  
• Then take a greyhound bus to Darwin via Tennant Creek
• Mt Isa 1930 | Tennant Creek 0250 || 0325 | Darwin 1730
  

The lander trains are interesting ones. Some of the ‘lander cars are over 50 years old, the original design for the car allows them to be self sufficient for up to a week if they are cut off by flood waters. For this reason they have separate powercars and they used to have multiple dining cars. They also have Australia’s only 3 berth sleepers.

Another alternative, you could also go on to Cairns then board the Sea Swift to Thursday Island (dep Fri arr Wed)
then somehow make you way north to Iryan Jaya. From there a Pelni ship can carry you to the island of Java (about 5-7 days transit). Now you would feel funky after that trip.

East Timor – Indonesia

Indonesia no longer have a ferry service to Dili. To get to Indonesia you need to catch a bus from Dili, East Timor to Kupang, Indonesia on the South West of the Island. The 300km takes 12 hours and is described by many as:

“quite boring,”

The bus’s are known as ‘Biskota’ or Big Bus, there are smaller modes of transport like the ‘microlet’ or ‘little bus’ too, but on those road you want some decent suspension, stick with the biggest one you can find.

Darwin

Arriving

You need to get a cab unless they have a service bus. The station is around 16km out of town in the Industrial Area.

Darwin

Dont know too much about it.

Quiet little city.

It does have a Bus service, but no more than any other regional center, they are shiny and new, and more importantly Air Conditioned.

Adelaide

View Larger Map

The Indian Pacific gives you plenty of relaxation time, you cruise out of outer sydney, have dinner on the train and awake the next morning in Broken Hill 0820. From there its another 10 hours looking out the window until you arrive in Adelaide at 1840.

A little inconvenient you miss the Ghan by 6 hours. You have to stay 2 nights in Adelaide. There are some unique sites to see and some even more unique public transport.

• The Adelaide O-Bahn, world longest guided busway.
• The only diesel suburban rail network left in Australia
  • See if you can get one of the jumbo’s, they usually run during peak hours only and make an interesting ride. Might be one of the last diesel-hydraulic transmission railcars left too.
  • All the trains are broad gauge, plenty of shoulder room.
  • Sitting up the front of the 3000 class DMU will give you a driver side view of the road.
  • The trip up to Belair and back is another picturesque ride.
• The Glenelg tram is interesting, don’t know how often the old H class trams run, but catch one, their nearly 80 years old.

Start…

View Larger Map
Sydney Terminal, as good a place as any to start to plan to go half way around the globe by public transport.

From here to get to the next bit you need to get to Darwin. Now the straight forward way would be to Catch the Indian Pacific to Adelaide and then The Ghan to Darwin, but why missout on all that variety.

You can travel a long way by public transport in NSW but you do need to draw a line. Yes you could get to Broken Hill by public transport I guess, but you can only endure so much ‘Travel’. You have alot of factors to consider in setting an outer limit of endurance and risk with any travel plans. Why not start out with something different, book your bags in at Central and head west on Sydney’s public Transport.

The weakest link in the plan is the IP, for that you need to work backwards from your critical last connection time. You do eventually need to catch up with the IP. Travel plans should consider these last minute stops:

Mon,Tue           Arr   Dep
Sydney    00:00 14:55 14:55
Lithgow   03:19 18:09 18:09
Bathurst  04:41 19:44 19:44
Blayney   05:45 20:51 20:51
Orange    06:14 21:25 21:25
Parkes    09:13 23:23 23:23

The sydney metropolitan bus network extends to penrith in the west, from there you can get Cityrail trains as far as Lithgow and CountryLink Bus/Rail travel beyond here. The countrylink Western Timetable doesnt integrate the Indian Pacific you you need to do some work.

You can get a morning Explorer service and spend the day at Parkes

• Sydney 0620 | Parkes 12:55 || 23:23 (no thanks)

Orange presents a problem, Orange and Orange East Fork are not the same station, east fork is about 2km from the middle of town. You do get to spend 4 hours there but it will be dark.

• Lithgow 15:20 | Orange 17:00 || 21:25 (4h25)

A number of buses can get you to Bathurst but Blaney only allows a 4 min window to catch the IP. Bathurst is probably as far as you want to go before bunking down on the IP for the night

• Lithgow 15:20 | Bathurst 16:15 || 19:44 (3h15)

Given the Blue Mountains end at Lithgow you may want to just fall back to boarding here

• Lithgow 18:09

Back from here you can enjoy the Blue Mountains via Cityrail’s Blue Mountain Line, might be able to go in and out of scheduled services with the Blue Mountain Bus Company although the train will give a better view. A stop at Katoomba or the Zig Zag is a good call.

Metropolitain Sydney gives you plenty of Public Transport marvels, you could spends days here and never catch the same service twice.

The ferry is only around 1km from the station across the middle of town.

Dep Parramatta station 12:27/14:54 | arr Lithgow 14:25/17:12 || 18:09 join the IP

Get the Ferry to Paramatta from Circular Quay or Darling Harbour

• Dep Circular Quay 0900/1000/1100/1230 +60 mins later into Parramatta
• or get lost on the myriad of buses running from Sydney via whoopwhoop to Parramatta, allow 2 hours

0800 Start out leave your bags for the IP at Central and take the Train to Circular Quay

• This is as close as Australia gets to a Metro, the City Circle Line
  

• or Tram to Darling Harbour

• • Sydney lost its trams in the 50’s; the Metro Light Rail isnt really a metro and by light rail standards doesn’t use light rail, its the full 50kg/m
• With a bit of creativity you can also jump on the Monorail

After reading this and the next post I realised that there is another way to get to Darwin, thats a little more interesting…
See later entry Sydney – Darwin Alt Route

Planning this out is easier if you use tools like Gantt charts or timespace graphs. Have got my style for this down yet. Look for the bolds, there the critical bits.