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Communist countries loved their railways. Compared with market economies of roughly similar size, the communist bloc countries paid much more attention to their railway networks, often at the expense of motorways and other means of transportation.
This affinity for rail can be explained by a number of factors: to an extent, it can be explained by the great impact the ideas from the late 19th century had on communist decision makers. For them, industrial power was expressed, above all, in terms of steel produced and tons of coal dug up. On the other hand, such an emphasis on railways might be related to a certain ingrained distrust of individual car ownership and, more broadly speaking, less controllable and more flexible automotive transportation.
However, special emphasis on railways in the Communist Bloc countries did not prevent their gradual stagnation. By the 1970s, the Communist countries' railways began to resemble living history museums. Perhaps, nowhere else in the world was this tendency more pronounced than in North Korea.
When North Korea became an independent state in 1945, it inherited a highly advanced, technologically sophisticated railway system and a dense network of railway lines. In essence, this network has remained unchanged to the present day. There is nothing surprising in this: after all, very few new lines have been built in the world over the last 70 years. However, in the case of the North, it was not just the map, but also technology, that has changed little.
The total length of the DPRK railway system is about 4,600km (plus 520km of narrow gulch railways). Almost entirely (98 percent of the total length) it consists of single-track lines. This is not very conducive to speed, but one should not worry because the sorry state of locomotives and track alike mean the trains are remarkably slow.
Indeed, only on the railway connecting Pyongyang to Sinuiju, which carries some three quarters of North Koreas foreign trade, the speed of a passenger train reaches some 60kph or so. On all other lines, trains are much slower – frequently, less than 20kph.
A major change in comparison to the Japanese colonial era is the wide use of electricity. Roughly 80 percent of the total length of North Korea's railways are provided with electric power. The decision to switch to electricity was made in the 1960s when the country's generating capacity was still high and its ability to import oil increasingly came under doubt. However, in the 1990s, electricity production in North Korea plummeted, with predictably bad results for the railways.
In the mid-1990s at the height of the North Korean economic and food crisis, it could easily take up to one week to travel between Pyongyang and Cheongjin, a distance of just 500 kilometers. This was due to frequent power blackouts. A train could easily be stopped for hours in the middle of the track while it waits for more electricity.
Grave problems with electricity may be a primary reason that the North Korean railway administration retained a large number of steam locomotives, most leftovers from imperial Japan. The sight of a still-operational steam locomotive pulling a train in the early 21st century tends to attract much attention from foreign visitors, and it was interpreted as a sign of the backwardness of North Korea's industrial development, with good reason.
However, the North had little choice. They could not use diesel engines as the country could not afford to import fuel. Electric locomotives were out of the question as well, as reliable power remained elusive. Only in the last few years have the 80-year-old steam locomotives been partially (or completely) retired from service.
Well over half of passenger transportation in North Korea is done by rail. North Korea has no regular domestic air flights (though some charter flights for foreign tourists and local VIPs do exist). Inter-city bus networks, despite growth in the last half decade, remain underdeveloped. So, in most cases, trains are the most practical option when traveling in North Korea.
Until the early 2000s, nearly all cargo transport in the North was also handled via rail. However, in the last 15 years, North Korean entrepreneurs discovered that for purposes the flexibility, a truck is preferable to the rigidity of a train. On top of that, private businesses began to import used trucks from China, which are usually registered as property of official state enterprises when they come to the North (but are in practice privately owned and operated). Recently such trucks, used occasionally to transport people, have become serious competitors to the railway system – but rail still handles some 80 percent of the entire traffic.
Professor Andrei Lankov was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, and teaches at Kookmin University in Seoul. Reach him at anlankov@yahoo.com.
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