The Namyanggukkyŏng Line, or Namyang Border Line, is a long
railway
Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport using wheeled vehicles running in railway track, tracks, which usually consist of two parallel steel railway track, rails. Rail transport is one of the two primary means of ...
line of the
Korean State Railway
The Korean State Railway is the operating arm of the Ministry of Railways of North Korea (), commonly called the State Rail () and has its headquarters at Pyongyang, P'yŏngyang. The current Minister of Railways is Chang Jun-song.
History
19 ...
connecting
Namyang on the
Hambuk Line
The Hambuk Line is an electrified standard-gauge trunk line of the Korean State Railway in North Korea, running from Ch'ŏngjin on the P'yŏngra Line to Rajin, likewise on the P'yŏngra line.Kokubu, Hayato, 将軍様の鉄道 (Shōgun-sama no ...
with
Kukkyŏng at the
DPRK
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 borders China and Russia to the north at the Yalu (Amnok) and Tumen rivers, a ...
–
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...
border, continuing on to
Tumen, China, from Namyang.
[Kokubu, Hayato, 将軍様の鉄道 (Shōgun-sama no Tetsudō), p. 93 ] At Tumen it connects with
China Railway
China State Railway Group Co., Ltd., doing business as China Railway (CR), is the national passenger and freight railroad corporation of the China, People's Republic of China.
China Railway operates passenger and freight Rail transport in Chi ...
's
Changtu Railway (
Changchun
Changchun is the capital and largest city of Jilin, Jilin Province, China, on the Songliao Plain. Changchun is administered as a , comprising seven districts, one county and three county-level cities. At the 2020 census of China, Changchun ha ...
–Tumen;
长图铁路),
Tujia Railway Tujia may refer to:
*the Tujia people
*the Tujia language
The Tujia language (; zh, s=土家语 , t=土家語 , p=Tǔjiāyǔ) is a Sino-Tibetan language spoken natively by the Tujia people in Hunan Province, China. It is unclassified within t ...
(Tumen–
Jiamusi
Jiamusi (Manchu: ; formerly Kiamusze) is a prefecture-level city in eastern Heilongjiang province, People's Republic of China. Located along the middle and lower reaches of the Songhua River, it faces Russia's Khabarovsk Krai across the Ussuri ...
;
图佳铁路), and
Tuhun Railway (Tumen–South
Hunchun
Hunchun is a county-level city in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture within Jilin province to the far east. It borders North Hamgyong Province in North Korea and Primorsky Krai in Russia, has over 250,000 inhabitants, and covers 5,145&nbs ...
–
Changlingzi and on to
Russia
Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...
;
图珲铁路). The line is electrified between Namyang and Kukkyong.
History
The
Chosen Government Railway
Chosen or The Chosen may refer to:
Books
* ''The Chosen'' (Potok novel), a 1967 novel by Chaim Potok
* ''The Chosen'', a 1997 novel by L. J. Smith
* ''The Chosen'' (Pinto novel), a 1999 novel by Ricardo Pinto
* ''The Chosen'' (Karabel book), a b ...
(''Sentetsu'') nationalised the privately owned
Tomun Railway on 1 April 1929, acquiring the private railway's route from
Hoeryŏng
Hoeryŏng () is a city in North Hamgyong Province, North Korea. It is located opposite Jilin Province, China, with the Tumen River in between. Sanhe (三合鎮), in Longjing City, is the closest Chinese town across the river. Hoeryŏng is the bir ...
to
Tonggwanjin (now Kangalli) and calling it the "West Tomun Line".
[朝鮮総督府官報 (The Public Journal of the Governor-General of Korea), Shōwa No. 669, 28 March 1929 (in Japanese)] Intending to create as short a route as possible from Japan to
Manchuria
Manchuria is a historical region in northeast Asia encompassing the entirety of present-day northeast China and parts of the modern-day Russian Far East south of the Uda (Khabarovsk Krai), Uda River and the Tukuringra-Dzhagdy Ranges. The exact ...
, Sentetsu had started building its own "East Tomun Line" from
Unggi (now Sŏnbong) towards Tonggwanjin in 1929, eventually reaching Namyang on 1 December 1932, and finally closed the final gap between Namyang and Tonggwanjin on 1 August 1933, thus completing the Tomun Line from Hoeryŏng to Unggi; Tonggwanjin station was renamed Tonggwan at that time.
[朝鮮総督府官報 (The Public Journal of the Governor-General of Korea), Shōwa No. 1963, 26 July 1933 (in Japanese)]
At the same time as the Namyang–Tonggwan section of the mainline was opened, a bridge was built over the
Tumen River
The Tumen River (, , ; Korean pronunciation: tumaŋaŋ">Help:IPA/Korean">tumaŋaŋ, also known as the Tuman River or Duman River, is a long river that serves as part of the boundary between China (left shore), North Korea (right) and Russi ...
at Namyang, along with a line to Tumen,
Manchukuo
Manchukuo, officially known as the State of Manchuria prior to 1934 and the Empire of Great Manchuria thereafter, was a puppet state of the Empire of Japan in Northeast China that existed from 1932 until its dissolution in 1945. It was ostens ...
.
This connected Sentetsu to the
Manchukuo National Railway
The Manchukuo National Railway (Traditional Chinese and Japanese kanji: , Japanese romanization: ''Manshū Kokuyū Tetsudō'') was the state-owned national railway company of Manchukuo. Generally called the "國線" ("National Line", ''Kokusen' ...
's new
Jingtu Line from
Xinjing (now Changchun), capital of Manchukuo, to Tumen, that was also opened in 1933. This established the desired shortest-possible connection from Japan to
Harbin
Harbin, ; zh, , s=哈尔滨, t=哈爾濱, p=Hā'ěrbīn; IPA: . is the capital of Heilongjiang, China. It is the largest city of Heilongjiang, as well as being the city with the second-largest urban area, urban population (after Shenyang, Lia ...
via the Korean ports of
Ch'ŏngjin and Unggi through Xinjing.
On 1 October 1933, management of Sentetsu's entire route from Ch'ŏngjin to Unggi was transferred to the
South Manchuria Railway
The South Manchuria Railway (; ), officially , Mantetsu () or Mantie () for short, was a large of the Empire of Japan whose primary function was the operation of railways on the Dalian– Fengtian (Mukden)–Changchun (called Xinjing from ...
(''Mantetsu''), and on 1 November 1934 the Unggi–Namyang section of the Domun Line and the Namyang–Tumen line were merged to form Mantetsu's
North Chosen East Line (Unggi–Namyang–Tumen); the Namyang–Sambong section became the North Chosen West Line.
In 1936, the "Asahi" express train between Xinjing and
Rajin was inaugurated, to connect to the ferry from Rajin to
Japan
Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...
.
In 1940, management of the Ch'ŏngjin–Sambong route was transferred back to Sentetsu, which made it part of its
Hamgyeong Line; Mantetsu continued to manage the North Chosen East Line, eventually acquiring outright ownership of the line.
[朝鮮総督府官報 (The Public Journal of the Governor-General of Korea), Shōwa No. 5461, 21 April 1945 (in Japanese)]
Services
The line is used for import-export traffic between the DPRK and China; the primary exports shipped through to China are
magnetite
Magnetite is a mineral and one of the main iron ores, with the chemical formula . It is one of the iron oxide, oxides of iron, and is ferrimagnetism, ferrimagnetic; it is attracted to a magnet and can be magnetization, magnetized to become a ...
,
talc
Talc, or talcum, is a clay mineral composed of hydrated magnesium silicate, with the chemical formula . Talc in powdered form, often combined with corn starch, is used as baby powder. This mineral is used as a thickening agent and lubricant ...
and
steel
Steel is an alloy of iron and carbon that demonstrates improved mechanical properties compared to the pure form of iron. Due to steel's high Young's modulus, elastic modulus, Yield (engineering), yield strength, Fracture, fracture strength a ...
, and the main import is
coke.
[The traffic and geography in North Korea]
Hambuk Line
(in Korean) These trains are often hauled by Chinese or Korean
DF5-type locomotives.
International train from Tumen to Namyang
/ref>
Route
A yellow background in the "Distance" box indicates that section of the line is not electrified.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Namyanggukkyong Line
Railway lines in North Korea
Standard-gauge railways in North Korea