Does anyone know if the local train to ShiZui still runs? Or which of the other local train services is still definitely running? I want to take my 1 year old on his first (short) train ride...

Ocean: most trains leave from the main train station, and a lot of them are local. I don't know of a place named ShiZui, but that's where I'd go to find it, not the Railway Museum..

Thanks @Alien, but I'm talking about the small local trains that run from the North Station (next to the Railway Museum). You can often see/hear them crossing the roads with their horns blaring etc. I've taken the one to ShiZui before (takes about 40 mins to get there and then returns).

This article had destinations and times, but it's 3 years old now and, I think, out of date:

www.gokunming.com/[...]

@Ocean: right, got it. I'd like to know about those trains too., let us know what you find out.

We took the train to ShiZui today. Only one trip per day now and it leaves 10mins earlier than previous articles suggest, so:

8863: Kunming BeiZhan to ShiZui

10:00 Kunming Bei 昆明北
10:10 Mayuan 麻园
(...this is just behind "Think UK")
10:50 Shizui 石咀

The engine then decouples and moves to the "back" of the train for the journey home.

As before, there were more workers than passengers, but a friendly atmosphere and, at 2RMB rtn, the cheapest couple of hours' fun you can get in Kunming!

The Museum has been relocated right behind the North Train Station. The Railway Museum is closed on Monday and Tuesday

To add something to this visit, it may be recommended to read some old books on how it was when this train route was functioning, and particularly before 1950's. There are a few books out there on this and one that has a few pages on this is a book by Nicol Smith called Burma Road. It can be found in the Yunnan library near Cuihu. It gives some vivid descriptions. When Joseph Rock travelled it, it was attacked by bandits. Missionaries have given descriptions too, and some are on Internet. Theres a huge French volume on this project too, in two books larger than the bible. Down in Hanoi there are still a lot of documents on this and so on.

All the stories of this railroad are not to be missed. Some of them lazy expats in Kunming could write a book on this rather than only having Chiang Mai folks providing Yunnan details. There seems to be an acute lack of intellectual activity in Yunnan expats overall. Maybe its the climate.

In Hanoi library (This is the old central Indochina library the French established) theres an old tourist guidebook from 1913, on how it is going up this train from Hanoi to Yunnanfu (i.e. Kunming). Its a wonderful reading. Describing Lao Kai, Mengtzi and so on. And daytrips around. Guide Madrolle du Yunnanfou 1913 (or something like that.)

About 'how it was before', this lazy expat is actually translating 蠻书 (a 1000+ year old text) documenting the trip up to Kunming (and beyond) from Vietnam. You can see progress, a collection of maps and also early photos from French-produced postcards focused on the Red River Valley over here: en.wikisource.org/wiki/Translation:Manshu/Chapter_1

@voltaire: Great, man, keep it up.