GARE DE PYONGYANG

The city's first station was built by the Japanese in the 1920s in a style more reminiscent of a large house in length than a large city station. This first one suffered extensive damage, as did the rest of the city, and was razed to make way for the current building. The station has five levels: three floors and a basement. The ground floor is for ticket sales, the first floor for waiting rooms, the second floor for administrative offices and on the top floor for the station chief's quarters. Five platforms have been built to accommodate different types of trains, the number 1 is the most spacious. Few works have been carried out in the station since its construction until 2014, when the work became essential. The station has been greatly modernized according to official newspapers, but these improvements are apparently complicated to detect.

As the country's main station, Pyongyang Station and is connected to most of the country's main cities (Hamhung, Rason...), these connections are the main source of traffic. In addition to domestic lines, there are connections with neighbouring countries such as China (it is possible to make a Beijing-Pyongyang), Russia from Moscow. A line does connect the capital of North Korea to that of South Korea, but it is interrupted in Kaesong due to tensions between the two countries.

On the station's façade and in many parts of the city, loudspeakers are hung, playing the famous melancholic music "but where are you dear General" to wake up the population every morning.

You can only "visit" the ground floor of the station by taking the train, i. e. when you arrive or leave the country. We use a small corridor to get to the platforms, look carefully in the rooms on both sides, they are waiting rooms for local travellers (prohibition to enter them...).