Korea Railpass

I'm feeling very inclined to make a trip to Korea soon. Maybe this year. You can get cheap flights over from Narita and I'd like to take a look around some of the 'sights' there. And get the feel of the place - I have quite a few Korean friends here now.

As a foreigner you can get a Korea Railpass - around USD 75 for three days. Three solid days of 'gricing' on a new railway system - perfect eh?

My eye was caught yesterday by an item about the new North - South Korea rail link. It seems that there are problems over tests that were supposed to have been started this week, but the system itself is built and ready to go as soon as the politicians and generals make their minds up. Here's a picture of the station on the southern side of the DMZ at Imjingak.

There's lots of talk about trans-Eurasian traffic - mainly freight of course between Japan, China and Europe. Hey! Maybe one day I'll be able to get on the train here in leafy Chiba-ken and get off again at Preston about 10 days later!

How will the gauge issue work in all this though? The new link is 'standard gauge' but as I understand it South Korean railways are 3'6" like Japan. And across Russia the tracks are 5'0" gauge and standard gauge in China. I wonder how all that would get worked out.

Be great to see some Calais-Pusan freight trains though! Here's hoping.