For nearly a year now, authorities in Hanoi have been trying to shut down “Train Street,” one of the city’s most famous unofficial attractions, where trains buzz by mere feet away from where people regularly sip coffee or beer in a row of open-air cafes.
But tourists just won’t stop coming, it seems, despite mounting safety concerns over the crowds gathering around the social-media-famous train tracks.
The century-old railway, built by Vietnam’s former French colonial rulers in 1902, cuts through the heart of bustling neighborhoods in Hanoi’s Old Quarter. What used to be a normal feature of everyday life for the district’s residents has over the last five years grown into one of the city’s most iconic tourist attractions—and the latest victim of overtourism.
Authorities said last Tuesday that they have issued a document requesting tighter penalties for businesses operating along the street—the latest in a series of measures that have failed to curb the scores of tourists flocking to Train Street. In April, Hanoi’s tourism department told travel agencies not to organize group tours to the location.

Kieu Cong Anh, a local tour guide and director of Hanoi Train Street Tour, tells TIME that he supports the move to curb tourist numbers on Train Street, having witnessed how oblivious tourists teeter on the edge of disaster, putting the burden on cautious shop owners to keep an eye out for visitors’ safety.
“Tourists don’t have anyone taking care [of them],” he says. “Sometimes they don’t know the distance to stand for safety. Many coffee shop owners, they see tourists taking photos, they will have to shout at them to come inside.”
Over the past few years, as foot-traffic to the area boomed, trains have had to apply their emergency brakes because of tourists who got dangerously close, including standing near the tracks and even sitting on the rail.
Amid growing fears of accidents along the passageway, authorities ordered its closure in 2019, in an attempt to keep tourists away.