The Hŏch'ŏn 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 ...

running from Tanch'ŏn on the

P'yŏngra Line The P'yŏngra Line is an electrified standard-gauge trunk line of the Korean State Railway in North Korea, running from P'yŏngyang to Rason, where it connects with the Hambuk Line.Kokubu, Hayato, 将軍様の鉄道 (Shōgun-sama no Tetsudō), I ...

to Honggun.Kokubu, Hayato, 将軍様の鉄道 (Shōgun-sama no Tetsudō),

History

The privately owned Tanp'ung Railway was formed to build a railway from Tanch'ŏn on the

Hamgyŏng Line The Hamgyeong Line was a railway line of the Chosen Government Railway (''Sentetsu'') in Japanese-occupied Korea, running from Wonsan to Sangsambong. Construction began in 1914, and was completed in 1928. The line is now entirely within North Ko ...

of the Chosen Government Railway to P'ungsan, the county seat of P'ungsan County; it was from the first characters of the names of the endpoints that the railway, and the mainline, got its name. The initial section of the mainline, from Tanch'ŏn to Honggun, was opened on 26 August 1939.朝鮮總督府官報 (The Public Journal of the Governor-General of Korea), Shōwa No. 3788, 4 September 1939 (in Japanese) A branchline, the

Mandŏk Line The Mandŏk Line is an electrified standard-gauge secondary line of the Korean State Railway in Hŏch'ŏn County, South Hamgyŏng Province, North Korea running from Hŏch'ŏn on the Hŏch'ŏn Line to Mandŏk.Kokubu, Hayato, 将軍様の鉄� ...

, from Kosŏng (now called Hŏch'ŏn) to Mandŏk was also opened, but the planned continuation from Honggun to P'ungsan was not completed before the fall of Japan at the end of the Pacific War. Following the partition of Korea, the entirety of the Tanp'ung Railway's network was located in the

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

zone of occupation. The Provisional People’s Committee for North Korea nationalised all railways in the northern half of the country on 10 August 1946, and following the establishment of

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 ...

, the

was created.Kokubu, Hayato, 将軍様の鉄道 (Shōgun-sama no Tetsudō), p. 131, Damage sustained by the line during the

Korean War {{Infobox military conflict , conflict = Korean War , partof = the Cold War and the Korean conflict , image = Korean War Montage 2.png , image_size = 300px , caption = Clockwise from top: ...

was repaired and the line was eventually electrified, but the extension to P'ungsan (renamed Kimhyŏnggwŏn in 1990) was never built.

Services

Two pairs of passenger trains are known to run on this line: * Local trains 551/556, operating from Kokku to Tongdae, run on this line on the segment between Tanch'ŏn Ch'ŏngnyŏn and Tongdae; * Local trains 925/926 operate on this line between Tanch'ŏn Ch'ŏngnyŏn and Honggun.

Route

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

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hochon Line Railway lines in North Korea Standard gauge railways in North Korea