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How to buy cycle friendly train tickets

22/10/2015

7 Comments

 
Yes you can get away with putting your bike on a KTX, any train car or under a bus, but it may involve taking off your wheels, having to make sure there's space between all the luggage or pretending not to know rules and hoping not to be caught. 

And so traveling between cities, if there is a train option with cycle racks available that will be my first option. There's always space, no taking wheels off or stressing about being caught. 
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But how do you find trains with bike racks? When do they run? Between which cities and where can you buy tickets or check? These were questions that kept me from using this care-free service. The answer is the Korail App!  

Unfortunately it's all in Korean, but if you know your Korean letters you can book tickets easy on your phone and secure a bike seat and know which trains have bike racks. There are lots of tutorials online that explains how to use the Korail app, just do a simple google search, but they don't show you how to check for a bike rack. 

I took a few quick screen shots and tried to show how you would find a ticket for yourself and your bike. It's not pretty, but hopefully it's useful. 
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I've taken the train from Haeundae to Ulsan and back a few times now, once I did not even have a bicycle ticket, because they were sold out. So I checked the time of the bicycle train and just got on it anyways, there's 5 bike racks, but lots of space available for more bikes. 

Once you know the time the trains come and go, it's pretty much the same for each day. Every day at 7:38am a train with bicycle racks leave from Haeundae station. 

For the trains near Haeundae and Ulsan the bike racks are always in the cafeteria car, number 4.  If it's not a bike friendly train they take out the cafeteria car, so the train has car 3 and 5, but car 4 is just missing. 

I'm already planning my next train cycle trip, maybe Miryang or Gyeongju...
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7 Comments
Wendy
11/4/2016 05:28:47 am

That's really helpful! Thank you. Tell me - what is an ARC number? Can the booking be completed without the ARC number?

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Cycling Corea
28/6/2016 04:10:29 pm

Glad it was helpful! The ARC number is an Alien Registration Card with your ID number as a foreigner living in Korea. You will need it to buy tickets on the app, but you can go to a train station and buy tickets without the number. The ID number is connected to your phone account and sends your tickets straight to your phone, so if you do not have a contract or phone package in Korea it won't work.

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Erick
5/1/2018 12:30:46 pm

Howdy--

Thanks for the helpful information!

We'd like to take our tandem on the train. Do you think this is possible?

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Joe
19/11/2018 04:16:18 pm

Eric, not sure if you are tracking this but wondering if you took the tandem on the train. If yes how did it work out.

I lived in Korea for a year and never took the bike train, but took my single on the buses frequently. I figured the buses will work with the tandem as well but not sure about the train.

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Erick
19/11/2018 09:29:42 pm

We weren't able to make our originally planned trip, but are thinking about going this spring. Sorry we can't help!

Ivan
1/4/2018 05:15:30 pm

I installed the KORAILTALK iPhone app. The good thing it’s in English and I can see the Mugunghwa trains but I can’t see which of them have bicycle racks.

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Ivan Liew link
20/11/2018 04:01:46 pm

I completed our Seoul-Busan ride and took the Mugunghwa back with our bikes. Info can can be read on our blog http://seoulbusan.wordpress.com - I learned that (in Oct 2018) the Mugunghwa which takes bikes leaves from Bujeon Station and not Busan Station. I only learned that the day I arrived in Bujeon. Several days later I learned that the S-Train (special tourist train takes bikes). Read my blog for more info. If you are into trains the S-Train is definitely worth the trouble.

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