North Korea has set out to launch a railway
run by electricity, stretching from Yangkang Province’s Hyesan to Musan in
North Hamkyung Province, despite constantly facing power shortages within the
country. For this reason, the idea has already been dubbed a ‘legacy-building’
project for Kim Jong Un that will likely not be able to yield proper results,
local sources reported.
“Recently, the provincial People’s
Committee has started looking into the validity of this project,” a source from
Yangkang Province told Daily NK on Friday.
Another source in North Hamkyung Province
corroborated the story, noting, “They’re saying it’s to make the Suryeong’s
(Kim Il Sung) legacies further shine, and the plan is to mobilize storm troops
to build this electric train system.”
Both sources confirmed the plan has been
launched under the premise that the construction of Mt. Baekdu Songun Youth
Power Plant, for which a massive number of soldiers have been mobilized, will
see success. The belief is, once the hydroelectric power plant is complete,
there will be enough power to run the trains, and Kim Jong Un has ordered the
plan be implemented in order to add more to his list of ‘legacies,’ according
to both the sources.
“The Marshal (Kim Jong Un) believes that if
the power plant runs smoothly, they will be able to draw electricity from it
immediately and has handed down these orders,” the Yangkang Province source
said. “But residents have been questioning this, asking if the priority should
not be on securing water at times of droughts like these.”
She explained that the derelict roads leading to
Hyesan, dotted with historic sites from battles against Japanese Imperialists,
likely prompted the motive–described by the source as “completely lacking sense,”– to build an electric train.
“Some have complained there is no need to
build a new railway since those traveling to the former battle sites are
required to walk on foot anyway,” she added.
For these reasons, the train project will
likely be pushed forward simply to show off Kim Jong Un’s legacy as opposed to
actually helping improve the quality of people’s lives, the source asserted.
Just as he has attempted to raise his profile of accomplishments by building
amusement parks, ski resorts, apartment complexes, and other large projects
such as power plants, Kim Jong Un will attempt the same with this plan.
“There are roads all along the river, so
it’s hard to understand why they would want to build an electric train that
can’t run without power,” she explained.
“Especially given that the strip
from Hyesan to Musan has a military road and almost no regular people need to
travel along it aside from the occasional troops, it makes no sense to build a
train where it’s so quiet.”
Citing a former railway running from
Gangwon Province’s Ichon to Sepo County, which was uprooted and used to build
another route in the early 2000s, this source speculated that the probability of
this project facing a similar fate down the line to be high.
“Trains are stopping here and there because of the power shortage, so all
vendors now use trucks; to try to build another railway instead of trying to
supply existing ones with steady power is just another in a long list of
unrealistic plans,” she pointed out.
