The Ch'ŏngnam Line is a partially electrified standard-gauge secondary line of the

Korean State Railway The Korean State Railway (), commonly called the State Rail () is the operating arm of the Ministry of Railways of North Korea and has its headquarters at P'yŏngyang. The current Minister of Railways is Chang Jun Song. History 1945–195 ...

in South P'yŏngan Province,

North Korea North Korea, officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the northern half of the Korean Peninsula and shares borders with China and Russia to the north, at the Yalu (Amnok) and ...

, running from Ch'ŏngnam on the northern part of the

Sŏhae Line The Sŏhae Line, also known as the Anju Colliery Line (안주 탄광선), is a partially electrified standard-gauge secondary line of the Korean State Railway in South P'yŏngan Province, North Korea, running from Mundŏk on the P'yŏngŭi Lin ...

to Samch'ŏnp'o via a loop line connecting several

collieries Coal mining is the process of extracting coal from the ground. Coal is valued for its energy content and since the 1880s has been widely used to generate electricity. Steel and cement industries use coal as a fuel for extraction of iron fro ...

to the mainline of the Sŏhae Line.Kokubu, Hayato, 将軍様の鉄道 (Shōgun-sama no Tetsudō),

History

The Korean State Railway built the

to exploit coal fields in the area, opening the Mundŏk— Ch'ŏngnam— Samch'ŏnp'o—

Namdong Namdong District (Namdong-gu) is a municipal district in Incheon, South Korea. Namdong-gu has been the city centre of Incheon since 1985. It is the location for Incheon Metropolitan City Hall, Incheon Metropolitan Police Agency main offices, the N ...

line in the 1970s;Choe, Un-sik, 한국의 전통 사회 운송 기구, , pp. 114-115 electrification of the line to Namdong was completed in 1978. In 1987 the line was expanded in two directions - one an extension westwards from Ch'ŏngnam (see

), and the other a loop line from Samch'ŏnp'o - called the Ch'ŏngnam Line - along with a connecting line to Sŏsi on the new extension. Part of the loop, from Samch'ŏnp'o to Ch'illi, was electrified. Most of the trackage was later abandoned, including the entirety of the Ch'ŏngnam Line loop.

Services

Much of the coal that originated on the line was shipped to the Ch'ŏngch'ŏn River Thermal Power Plant on the Ch'ŏnghwaryŏk Line.North Korea Geographic Information: Transportation Geography - P'yŏngŭi Line (in Korean)
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Route

A yellow background in the "Distance" box indicates that section of the line is not electrified.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Chongnam Line Railway lines in North Korea Standard gauge railways in North Korea Railway lines opened in 1987