Hanoi to Hue train: all 12 trains, times and night runs

Here's the night ride as travelers have written it up between 2011 and 2024. You'll find the guard waiting by your carriage door with a red lantern on a hook, and a four-berth cabin inside: two bunks a side, a little table under the window, a reading light over each bed. There's no ladder to the top bunk, just a metal step in the wall. Pulling out of Hanoi, you'll see mopeds bunched at the level crossings "like flocks of sheep", and for a stretch the carriages run so close to houses it feels like you could touch them. It gets jerky in places (one traveler cracked her head on the bunk light), and in the wet season you may wake to flooded fields, an hour's delay and a crowd of taxi drivers at the Hue gate. One scene worth knowing before you board: in April 2024 a Redditor on the overnight train from Ninh Binh to Hue was told a mother and baby would be joining the cabin, and the attendant asked for cash to buy the baby's ticket. The couple said no. At the next stop a man got on. No baby.

Hanoi to Hue train times and schedule

All 12 trains are below; +1 means the day after you board, and the journey times are our arithmetic from the clock times on the railway's ticket site, which sold the same trains at the same times on every date we tried, from 22 October to 30 December 2026. They're the trains Vietnam Railways announced on 4 July 2026 for the months after the summer peak (Lao Động): the five Reunification Express pairs, SE1/SE2 to SE9/SE10, and the Hanoi to Da Nang pair SE19/SE20. On the odd date the ticket site also sells an extra train; it isn't in the schedule, so it isn't here.

Which Hanoi to Hue trains run overnight?

Four southbound trains run through the night: SE9, SE3, SE19 and SE1. Going north, SE10, SE4, SE2 and SE20 do, while SE8 and SE6 leave Hue before dawn and reach Hanoi the same evening.

What does first class mean on this route?

We found no official "first class" label for this route from the timetable's seat glossary. The glossary lists Vietnamese categories instead. "Ngồi mềm" means "soft seat," and "Ngồi mềm điều hoà" means "air-conditioned soft seat." It also includes "Nằm khoang có 4 giường," a compartment with 4 berths, and "Nằm khoang có 6 giường," a compartment with 6 berths.

Those are labels in the operator's general glossary. The ticket site shows what a given train carries on a given date: SE3 on 27 October 2026 had extra seats, soft seats, and 6-berth and 4-berth compartments, but no 2-berth cabin. Check the seat list in the booking search for your own train.

For the history, Nhan Dan newspaper's channel looks back at the first Reunification train that linked north and south (in Vietnamese).

Stops between Hanoi and Hue

All six southbound trains stop at Ninh Binh, 115 km from Hanoi, and at Dong Hoi, 522 km from Hanoi and the station for Phong Nha. If one long ride is too much, break the trip at either and ride the rest another day.

The same trains carry on to Da Nang, 791 km from Hanoi, where SE19 ends. SE7 gets there at 22:15 on the day it leaves, and SE3 is in Da Nang at 10:28, under three hours after Hue.

Hanoi to Hue train price

The railway's ticket site prices each train, date and carriage on its own. For SE3 on 27 October 2026 it showed these one-way fares:

The lower bunks and the newer carriages cost more, which is why most classes show a range. Prices also move with the date: on 10 November the same soft seat started at VND 554,000 and a 4-berth bunk at VND 1,264,000. Search the ticket site for your own day; the official fare lookup asks for the same four things: "Ngày đi" (departure date), "Mác tàu" (train code), "Ga đi" (departure station) and "Ga đến" (arrival station).

Pairing Hanoi and Hue on one trip

Vietnam's national tourism site also lists the Reunification Express as one way to reach Hue, and puts Phu Bai Airport about 15 km from the city. Allow for the date change when you book a room or a transfer on a +1 train. For what to see at each end, see the Hanoi destination notes and the Hue destination page. Other ways to cover the distance are on the Vietnam getting-around overview, and if you are still choosing a base in central Vietnam, read the Hue or Da Nang comparison. If you would rather fly, our airports by destination article lists the nearest airport with scheduled flights for each place, and the overnight line north to Lao Cai is covered in Hanoi to Sa Pa.

Asked whether a long train ride down the coast is worth it, one r/VietNam user described the carriages:

"The trains here are pretty grubby. Bathrooms can get pretty dirty/smelly over the course of a trip, the furnishings and fittings show a lot of wear and tear [...]"

u/thitmeo on r/VietNam

What we could not confirm

The timetable grid has no effective date beside its train times, and its stop times are departures, a few minutes later than the arrival times the ticket site gives; we use the ticket site's. On 21 October 2026 the ticket site sold SE19 and SE20 up to 30 December only; from 31 December to mid-January it listed only the five Reunification Express pairs, and we found no announcement saying whether SE19 and SE20 run after that. If you travel in the new year, check your date. Fares change by date and carriage; ours are for two sample dates.

Our take on the Hanoi to Hue train

SE3 is the one: the fastest train south, a full night in the bunk, and a morning arrival with the whole day ahead. If it's full, SE19 leaves 25 minutes later and gets in at 08:45, and SE1 by mid-morning. Ride SE7 only if you'd rather watch the country go by in daylight and don't mind checking in at night. Skip SE9 (03:07) unless a very early arrival suits you. And if an attendant asks for cash for a "baby's ticket" in your cabin, say no.

How we checked this

We read 4 sources on 2026-10-07 and 2026-10-08: Vietnam Railways' timetable grid and fare form, a VnEconomy report on the 2026 summer timetable, and the Vietnam Tourism site for how to reach Hue. Vietnam Tourism later moved and rewrote its Hue page, so we re-read it at the new address on 2026-10-12 and replaced its airport figure. On 2026-10-19 we re-read every train and time on the railway's ticket site for ten travel dates from 22 October to 20 December 2026, read the SE3 fares for 27 October and 10 November there, and matched the train list against the schedule Vietnam Railways announced on 4 July 2026. The journey times are our own arithmetic from the ticket site's clock times.

On 2026-10-21 we read the ticket site again for the same ten dates and for later ones up to 20 January 2027: every time, stop and SE3 fare in this article is unchanged, and SE19 and SE20 are on sale up to 30 December. The other sources and traveller accounts read the same.

References

• Vietnam Railways ticket site: trains, departure and arrival times and fares by date, Hanoi to Hue and Hue to Hanoi; checked 2026-10-21 for travel from 22 October 2026 to 20 January 2027.
• Lao Động, Vietnam Railways' schedule after the 2026 summer peak: news report dated 4 July 2026 listing SE1/SE2 to SE9/SE10 and SE19/SE20; checked 2026-10-19.
• Vietnam Railways train timetable: Official northbound and southbound station grid, including the seat glossary; no effective date shown, checked October 2026.
• Vietnam Railways fare lookup for Hanoi, Vinh and Hue: Official date, train and station search form; checked October 2026.
• VnEconomy, summer 2026 train tickets and services: news report dated 11 April 2026 with the five north-south train pairs and Hanoi departure times; checked October 2026.
• Vietnam Tourism, Hue: national tourism site, transport to Hue; checked 2026-10-12.

Photo (cover): Nguyenbaotrung725 / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0