The DMZ Peace Link Train

North of Seoul the Gyeongui Line runs for 56 kilometres to Dorasan, the last station in South Korea, about 650 metres short of the southern edge of the Demilitarized Zone. The line was built through to Kaesong, Pyongyang and Sinuiju on the Chinese border, and the platform signs at Dorasan still point the way to Pyongyang. Since the division of 1945 the only passenger train to go further north was a single test train in May 2007.

The DMZ Peace Link Train is how a visitor gets there. Dorasan stands inside the Civilian Control Zone, where nobody goes without being checked, so the train is not sold as a ticket but as a day tour run by Korail: every passenger is booked by name, the train stops at Imjingang on the near bank of the Imjin River while identity papers are checked, and at Dorasan a coach takes the group on to an observation post that looks across the border into Kaesong.

The service has had a short and broken life. A first DMZ Train began in May 2014, was suspended in October 2019 and formally ended in December 2023. It came back as the DMZ Peace Link in April 2026, after six and a half years, and now runs a few times a month, on Fridays and Saturdays.

The group meets at 08:10 at entrance 1 of the Gyeongui Line platforms at Seoul Station, and the train leaves at 08:45. For the first hour it is a commuter run through the north-western suburbs and into Paju, stopping once, at Unjeong. Beyond Munsan, where the through commuter trains end, it runs out across the fields to the Imjin River.

Imjingang and the river

At 10:01 the train stops at Imjingang, the last station before the river, and everyone gets off. Dorasan lies inside the Civilian Control Zone, and here every passenger's identity papers are checked against the details sent in at booking. After twenty minutes the train sets off again and crosses the Imjin on a white steel truss bridge. Beside it stand the bare piers of the line's second bridge, bombed in the Korean War, and the wooden Freedom Bridge, by which 12,773 prisoners of war came home in 1953. Ten minutes later the train is at Dorasan.

Dorasan and the border

Dorasan station opened in April 2002, built as the South's last stop on a line reconnected to the North. In December 2007 freight trains began running 16 kilometres to the Kaesong industrial zone, one a day on weekdays; a year later the North closed the line again. On 15 October 2024 it blew up the northern ends of the road and rail links to the South.

From the station a coach takes the group up to the Dora Observatory, where binoculars look across the DMZ to Kaesong and the mountain of Songaksan (photography is forbidden beyond a marked line), then to lunch in the village of Tongilchon, and to Camp Greaves, a former American base. The coach is back at Dorasan for a second identity check at 14:45, and the train leaves at 15:09, in Seoul at 16:35.

The train

The 2014 DMZ Train ran with diesel railcars painted for the job, each carriage given a theme of peace, harmony or love, with pinwheels on the ceilings. The DMZ Peace Link is an ordinary Korail electric commuter unit, of the kind that works the Gyeongui Line every day. There are no toilets on board. Seats are allotted by carriage, and inside there is a DMZ photo wall, a camera that prints black-and-white photographs on till receipts, and a slow mailbox: a postcard written on the train is posted to you six months later.

The DMZ Peace Link makes one return trip on each day it runs, and it runs only as part of the Korail day tour. When it came back in April 2026 Korail scheduled it for the second and fourth Friday of each month; by the autumn some departures had moved to Saturdays, and in October 2026 it ran on Friday 2, Saturday 10, Friday 23 and Saturday 31 October. The tour operator warns that Friday and Saturday timings can differ. The times below are from the Saturday 31 October tour.

The outward train waits twenty minutes at Imjingang for the identity check, and Unjeong is the only other stop. The group spends about four and a half hours at the Dorasan end, all of it on the coach tour.

A departure goes ahead only when at least 30 people have booked; if it falls short the operator cancels three or four days before. Bad weather or the army's own needs can also cancel a tour on the day.

As of October 2026. Departures are published by the tour operator: Korail Networks · DMZ Peace Link Train (opens in a new tab).

There is no train ticket on its own: the DMZ Peace Link is sold only as a day tour, by Korail Networks on korailtravel.com. The October 2026 tour cost ₩47,600 for adults, children and seniors alike, covering the return train, the coach, admissions, a guide and a souvenir ticket; lunch is extra. Enter the names, dates of birth and contact details of everyone in the party when booking: entry to the zone is refused if any of them is wrong.

Every passenger must carry the original of a photo ID on the day: foreign visitors their passport or Korean residence card. Children under 15 must be with a guardian. Drones, action cameras and body cameras are banned, and military installations must not be photographed.

No rail pass covers the DMZ Peace Link. The train is sold only inside the Korail Networks day tour, and the KORAIL PASS, sold to foreign visitors, is in any case not valid on metropolitan subway trains or on special tourist trains.

Checked October 2026 against Korail's KORAIL PASS details (opens in a new tab).

Imjingak and the Freedom Bridge stand on the near bank of the Imjin beside Imjingang station, outside the Civilian Control Zone and open to everyone. Camp Greaves lies beyond the river, inside the zone, and can be visited only on an organised tour such as this one.

The tour is a day out from Seoul and meets at Seoul Station at 08:10, so the place to stay is within walking distance of the station.

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