A South Korean train has crossed into the North to officially launch a historic joint project to reconnect railroad tracks between the two nations.
The train departed from Dorasan station in South Korea and arrived at North Korea’s Panmun station, the first terminal across the border.
Media reports say the six-wagon train is carrying 28 South Koreans, including railway engineers and other workers, as well as 55 tonnes of fuel and an electricity generator.
The division of the Korean Peninsula has taken different tolls on both countries over the years. South Korean Transport Minister Kim Hyun-mee noted that the division has left his country geopolitically cut off from the continent for decades.
Hyun-mee said relinking the railway will facilitate expansion of South Korea’s “economic territory” to Eurasia by land.
“This signals the start of co-prosperity of the North and the South by reconnecting railways,” he said.
The South Korean rail workers and their counterparts in the North are due to stay in the train, inspecting two railway lines for a total of 18 days.
One of the lines is linking the North’s southernmost Kaesong City to Sinuiju City near the Chinese border, and the other is connecting Mount Kumgang near the inter-Korean border to Tumen River, bordering Russia in the east.
From December 2007 until November 2008, freight services ran between the two Koreas to support factories in a joint economic zone at Kaesong in North Korea. The line, however, was cut in 2008 as relations deteriorated.
Reconnection of the railway systems was among the agreements signed earlier this year during a crucial meeting between North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and the South’s President Moon Jae-in.
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