Trains in Korea and Japan

I am sure that some people have wondered about the trains in East Asia.  We have taken two trips since we’ve gotten to Korea.  The first was to Tokyo for a conference, and the second was to Gyeonju, Korea for vacation.  On both trips we wound up using the trains.  First, east Asian trains are way way nicer than any American train.  Because of the high population density in Asia (think 50 million people stuffed in an area the size of North Carolina), the fact that cars are not as common, and the $8/gallon gas, and trains become a very attractive option.  In all cases the trains are electric ($8/gal gas).  There are several types of trains generally, and about 7 types in Japan.  Don’t ask me to name them, I just remember that they had many classifications of trains in Japan ranging from super express, to local express to commuter.  Generally we have seen 3 types.

The first type of train that we have encountered is the commuter train.  In Daejeon, it is the single subway line, and people use busses, bikes and cars for all other travel.  But in Seoul, the subway map looks like a plate of spaghetti, and I’ve no idea about the busses because I’ve never been to Seoul. 

Tokyo’s commuter rail system is much more developed, to the point where I wondered if they spent too much on it.  There is a train stop near every place of interest, and the trains ride on elevated tracks so that they do not interfere with traffic.  However, I must note that the Tokyo’s trains are used a lot.  When we rode to downtown during rush hour, we were squashed up against people.  I’ve never been in such a crowded place in my life.  I was wondering if one of us would get crushed, or if a door would bust open from the pressure, so I guess the Japanese got their money’s worth out of it since their gas is probably $8/gallon too.

The second train is a local train.  These trains run at about 50mph and take people between cities.  In some cases you can sit in unreserved seats (like a bus or subway), but the one I am on now, there are only reserved seats (like Amtrak or an airplane).  It goes between cities in a slow way.  They are very similar to the Amtrak lines in NC. 

The fastest trains in east Asia are the KTX (Korea) and the Shinkansen (Japan).  Neither is Mag-Lev, but they both go fast.  In Japan it took 3 hours (with one stop included) to get from Tokyo to Tsuruga (300 miles).  It would have been faster if we didn't switch to a slow train for the last 30 minutes of the trip.  It was also very expensive (130 each one way).  Japan was expensive generally, and we felt very poor when we left.  We were happy to smell the Kimchi as soon as we got back to Korea.  The ride was very pretty though.   Tsuruga is a beautiful place.

Korea’s KTX is a bit nicer than the Shinkansen, and much less expensive.  We paid $20 each to go a shorter distance to Daegu—the next city over.  It had televisions-which the Shinkansen did not, and they told how fast we were going.  Our speed maxed out at 304 kph (188 mph).  The trip took 50 minutes, and it was 85 miles long.   The scenery was hard to look at because you only had about 5 seconds to look at a vista before something else.  It was very nice, and there were lots of tunnels.  Korea is a very mouantanous place, so Koreans have no qualms about making tunnels.  Only very tiny roads don’t get tunnels.  Even 2 lane country roads get tunnels.  My opinion is that it is also part of Korea’s culture to not mess around on projects.  The bad side of that is that Koreans often go too far on projects.