Da Lat railway station, and the line that stopped

Da Lat railway station is the best building in the city and the end of a line that no longer goes anywhere. It is a monument to an idea rather than a piece of transport.

What is the building?

The station was built between 1932 and 1938 in art deco, with three steeply pitched roofs, a clock face and panels of coloured glass. The roofs are read two ways at once. They nod to the communal houses of the highlands, and they trace the profile of the Langbiang peaks north of the city.

The building is small, symmetrical, ochre and red, and it has survived almost unaltered. Listed as a national monument, it is the only station in Vietnam people visit for the architecture rather than for a departure.

Where did the line go?

To Thap Cham on the coast, 84 km away and about 1,500 m below, and the descent is what made it remarkable. Parts of the route used a rack system, with a toothed rail the locomotive gripped to hold itself on gradients ordinary adhesion could not manage.

Very few railways anywhere were built that way. The line carried passengers and freight up to the hill station from the 1930s. War cut it repeatedly, and it was abandoned and lifted in the 1970s. The rack locomotives were sold to Switzerland, where some still run.

What is the ride actually like?

Slow, short and pleasant, and nobody should expect more. The shuttle leaves the station, runs through vegetable greenhouses and the back of the city, and stops at Trai Mat about half an hour later.

The carriages are old stock, one of them restored with wooden fittings for a higher fare. Services go when there are enough passengers, so the timetable is a statement of intent rather than a promise. In low season the first departure of the day is the safe one.

What is at the other end?

Linh Phuoc pagoda, a few minutes' walk from the Trai Mat platform, and it is the reason most people take the train. The whole temple is surfaced in broken ceramic and glass. There is a dragon made of beer bottles, a bell tower, and mosaic over every other surface.

Linh Phuoc is exuberant rather than serene and it takes half an hour. The same train goes back, which gives about forty minutes at the far end on a return ticket.

How does it fit a day in Da Lat?

The station is a morning, not a day. It sits a few minutes east of the centre by taxi and the round trip with the pagoda takes about two hours. The rest of Da Lat is waiting, and the things to do page covers what else the city is for.

Anyone interested in the railways more broadly should read the train itinerary. It covers the line that does still run, down the coast from Hanoi to Saigon. That one is 1,726 km and takes a day and a half.

What is left of the rack railway?

Very little in Vietnam, and rather more in Switzerland. When the line was lifted, several of the rack locomotives were sold to the Furka mountain railway, restored, and put back to work on Alpine gradients, where some still run.

What survives here is one steam locomotive on the platform at Da Lat, kept as a display, and a few cuttings and bridge piers along the old alignment down towards Thap Cham. Walking any of that route needs local help and a day; nothing is signposted.

What does it cost and when should you go?

A token entry to walk the platform and see the old locomotive, and roughly 150,000 dong for the return ride in the ordinary carriages. Tickets are sold at the counter inside on the day.

Go early. The station faces the morning light, the first train is the one most likely to run, and the tour groups arrive later. Da Lat's own weather is the other consideration — the month-by-month guide covers when the highlands are dry.