Seoul Station: Old and New

Photo by the author (19-4-2011)

Seoul Station is one of the most important and the oldest railway station in Korea and one can catch a train for most cities and provinces. It has KTX (bullet train), AREX (subway service between Incheon Airport and Seoul), Regular Train services, subway service (Line 1 and 4), and express bus services to almost all the suburbs of Seoul as well as different regions.
Sometimes, newcommers to Seoul are confused to locate Seoul Station because we have the newly built station and a few hundred meters away is the old building that used to serve as the railway station in olden days in Bongrae-dong with a very distinct architecture. I remember that my brother and cousin were lost and confused in 2006 - when they wanted to take a KTX (high-speed train) to Daejon and went to this old Seoul Station building and called me and said that there is nothing but locked doors and a rather abondoned building.

Photo by the author (19-4-2011)

Seoul Station opened in 1900's, it previous names were: Keijo (Gyeongseong Station) in 1900,- this name was changed to Namdaemun Station in 1905. When Seoul's name was changed from Hanseong to Gyeonseong in 1910 - during Japanese colonization- the name was reverted to Gyeonseong Stationin 1915. It was finally renamed Seoul Station in 1945. The Building has a beautiful architecture and was originally designed by a Japanese architect.

Photo Credits @ Hankyoreh (English)

After years of neglect - this building made it to the list of restoration projects ( that will end in 2014) taken up by the Ministry of Culture. Old Seoul Station's restoration project that started in 2009 is already complete before its scheduled completion on Aug. 9 with a budget of about about 20.12 million dollars or 21.3 billion won. At some point in the future, this building will be restored back to its original purpose - Train Station, that is.

Photo credits @ Ministry of Culture (Korea)

Currently, the station will be reborn into a cultural event hall named "Culture Station, Seoul 284". The state-run Korea Craft and Design Foundation (KCDF) reported that the two-story station, representative of modern architecture in South Korea, will be reborn into a culture complex with its original exterior. I'm looking forward to its inaugration in August.


Anyways, if one has to do railway reservation online to go to different areas of Korea click here.