Korea Railroad Museum

Next to Uiwang Station on Seoul Subway Line 1, right beside the tracks of the Gyeongbu Line, stands the Korea Railroad Museum. Its outdoor yard is lined with real rolling stock, from the presidential coach used by every president from Syngman Rhee to Park Chung-hee to the country's only surviving Pacific-type steam locomotive. Inside, a model railway diorama comes to life a few times a day and you can try a subway driving simulator. The museum is run directly by Korail, the national railway operator.

From Yongsan to Uiwang

The museum traces its origins to 1 October 1935, when the railway bureau of the Japanese colonial government opened an exhibition inside its railway staff training school in Yongsan, Seoul. Most of the collection was lost during the Korean War, and items were gathered again when a railway memorial hall opened at the Railway High School in 1981. The present building opened on this site on 26 January 1988. A branch at Seoul Station opened in 1997 and was merged back here in 2004, and since 2016 Korail has operated the museum itself.

In 2008 the presidential coach and eight other items were listed as Registered National Heritage, and more vehicles were added in 2022 and 2024. The whole museum is, in effect, an archive of trains that no longer move.

Stars of the outdoor yard

• Presidential coach: built in Japan and assembled at the Gyeongseong (Seoul) works in 1927, then converted for the president's use in 1955. It served presidents from Syngman Rhee to Park Chung-hee.
• Presidential diesel-electric railcar: built in 1969, with the driver's cab and passenger section in one unit. Inside are an office, a bedroom and a room for staff. It carried presidents from Park Chung-hee to Kim Dae-jung to events such as the opening of the double-tracked Chungbuk Line in 1980 and the opening of the Daejeon Expo in 1993.
• Pacific-type steam locomotive No. 23: an express passenger engine assembled at the Gyeongseong works in 1942 and retired when diesel locomotives arrived in 1967. It is the only one of its type left in Korea.
• And more: the Mikado-type steam locomotive 3-161, a narrow-gauge steam engine and narrow-gauge carriages, the private coach of the commander of UN forces in Korea, Bidulgi and Tongil-class coaches, Seoul metro car 1001, a steam crane and the old zero-kilometre marker that stood at Seoul Station from 1972 to 2004, about 30 exhibits in all.

Indoor galleries

The ground floor holds the central hall, the history room, the rolling stock room, the driving simulator room and the model railway diorama. Upstairs you will find rooms on electrification, track and infrastructure, and passenger services, plus a video room and a special exhibition space. Old signals and tablet token instruments, tickets and staff uniforms from different eras, and cross-sections of rail show the less visible side of running a railway.

Tripto tips

• Opening hours: March to October 09:30–17:30, November to February 09:30–17:00. Tickets are sold until 30 minutes before closing.
• Closed: every Monday (if Monday is a public holiday, the next weekday instead), 1 January, and the day before, the day of and the day after Seollal and Chuseok.
• Admission: adults (19–64) KRW 4,000, ages 4–18 KRW 2,000. Free with proof for children under 48 months, visitors aged 65 and over, people with disabilities (plus one companion) and national merit holders. Card payment only.
• Inside the presidential railcar: open on Fridays 15:00–16:00 and on Saturdays and Sundays 10:00–11:00 and 15:00–16:00, first come, first served. Five people go in at a time, wearing shoe covers, for about five minutes. There is no entry in rain or snow.
• Diorama and guided tours: the diorama runs for about 10 minutes at 11:30 and 14:00 on weekdays and at 11:30, 13:30 and 15:30 on weekends and holidays (not with 10 visitors or fewer). Guided tours with a railway interpreter leave the central hall at 11:40 and 14:10 on weekdays and at 11:40, 12:40, 13:40 and 14:40 on weekends and holidays.
• Driving simulator: KRW 1,000 for about three minutes, credit card only.
• Getting there: take exit 2 of Uiwang Station (Line 1), turn right and walk about 10 minutes. Or take bus 1-1, 1-5 or 5 from outside exit 2 to "Korea National University of Transportation" and walk 3 minutes. Parking in front of the museum is free.
• Time needed: allow 90 minutes to 2 hours for both the yard and the galleries. The outdoor yard has little shade, so mornings are more comfortable in midsummer.