The P'yŏngbuk Line is an electrified standard-gauge secondary trunk 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
North Pyŏngan 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
Chŏngju
Chŏngju (; also Jŏngju) is a ''si'', or city, in southern North P'yŏngan province, North Korea. Prior to 1994, it was designated as a ''kun'' or county. The terrain is mostly level, but mountainous in the north. To the south lies the Chŏ ...
on the
P'yŏngŭi Line to
Ch'ŏngsu; it meets the
Ch'ŏngnyŏn P'arwŏn Line at
Kusŏng, and at Ch'ŏngsu, via a bridge across the
Yalu River
The Yalu River, known by Koreans as the Amrok River or Amnok River, is a river on the border between North Korea and China. Together with the Tumen River to its east, and a small portion of Paektu Mountain, the Yalu forms the border betwe ...
, it goes to
Shanghekou,
China, where it connects to
China Railway
China State Railway Group Company, Ltd., doing business as China Railway (CR), is the national passenger and freight railroad corporation of the People's Republic of China.
China Railway operates passenger and freight transport throughout Ch ...
's
Fengshang Railway to
Fenghuangcheng.
[Kokubu, Hayato, 将軍様の鉄道 (Shōgun-sama no Tetsudō), ]
History
The line was opened by the privately owned
P'yŏngbuk Railway on 27 September 1939 as an industrial railway to serve the
Sup'ung Hydroelectric Power Plant on the
Yalu River
The Yalu River, known by Koreans as the Amrok River or Amnok River, is a river on the border between North Korea and China. Together with the Tumen River to its east, and a small portion of Paektu Mountain, the Yalu forms the border betwe ...
.
[朝鮮總督府官報 (The Public Journal of the Governor-General of Korea), Shōwa Nr. 3813, 3 October 1939] The Emperor of
Manchukuo
Manchukuo, officially the State of Manchuria prior to 1934 and the Empire of (Great) Manchuria after 1934, was a puppet state of the Empire of Japan in Manchuria from 1932 until 1945. It was founded as a republic in 1932 after the Japanese in ...
,
Puyi
Aisin-Gioro Puyi (; 7 February 1906 – 17 October 1967), courtesy name Yaozhi (曜之), was the last emperor of China as the eleventh and final Qing dynasty monarch. He became emperor at the age of two in 1908, but was forced to abdicate on 1 ...
, travelled along this line when he visited the Sup'ung Dam.
Following the
partition of Korea
The division of Korea began with the defeat of Japan in World War II. During the war, the Allied leaders considered the question of Korea's future after Japan's surrender in the war. The leaders reached an understanding that Korea would be l ...
the line was located within 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, and was nationalised along with all the other railways in the zone by the
Provisional People’s Committee for North Korea on 10 August 1946,
becoming part of the Korean State Railway. Electrification of the entire line was completed in 1980, and at the same time, semi-automatic train control was installed on the section between Chŏngju and Kusŏng.
[North Korea Geographic Information: Transportation Geography - P'yŏngbuk Line (in Korean)](_blank)
/ref>
Services
The line serves a variety of industries, including a textile factory in Kusŏng, a chemical factory in Ch'ŏngsu, and North Korea's largest lignite mine near P'ungnyŏn, as well as shipping large amounts of wood south from Amrokkang Station on the Yalu River. Other important commodities shipped on the line are limestone and anthracite.
Route
A yellow background in the "Distance" box indicates that section of the line is not electrified.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pyongbuk Line
Railway lines in North Korea
Standard gauge railways in North Korea