Train Street

A working railway line that runs between the houses with barely a metre either side, so that residents’ front steps are effectively the trackbed. Washing hangs over it, plants grow along it, children play on it, and a few times a day everything is pulled in and a train comes through.

It became famous, then it became a row of cafés with seating on the rails, and then in October 2019 the authorities ordered the cafés closed on safety grounds. They have been cleared again since. Barriers and guards now sit at the ends of the photographed sections.

What it costs

⭐ Free — the street is public — but access is the issue, not the price. Enforcement comes and goes, and a café that was seating people last month may be shuttered this month.

When to go

⚠️ Go expecting not to get in, and treat it as a bonus if you do. Do not plan a journey around a train time; the schedule is not reliably published for visitors and standing on a live line to wait for one is exactly what got the cafés closed.

Getting there

Two sections are known: one off Le Duan near the station and one on Tran Phu near the citadel. Both are a short walk from Hoa Lo Prison.

If you only have an hour

Look from the barrier at the end, which is legal, safe and gives you the same view along the line. Then walk on to Hoa Lo or the citadel, which are five minutes away and are definitely open.

What people get wrong

⛔ This is a live railway with no fence. People have been hurt here. Anyone selling you access past a barrier is selling you something they do not own — and the residents living on that line did not ask to be a viewing platform.