North and South Korea
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SEOUL — Observers are skeptical about new train traffic between North and South Korea despite a ceremony with officials from both countries re-joining rails between the countries for the first time in years.
The Washington Post reports that a rail joining ceremony Wednesday in Kaesong, North Korea, involved officials from both countries who signed a wooden tie and appeared in a photo pulling on levers to install track clips.
Though the rail links potentially open the way for South Korean manufacturers to export goods over land to Asia and Europe, U.S. economic sanctions against North Korea dim the prospects of reinvigorated commerce in the near future.
I read the Harrison novel in its original serialization in Analog, what, forty-some years ago; but, yes, I believe it involved a suspended underwater tube rather than a literal tunnel. The latter would entail some geological difficulties, especially crossing the Mid-Atlantic Ridge.
While this link up has lots of symbolism, the North Korea rail infrastructure is quite a mess. In fact the first commercial consist will probably derail shortly after entering the DPRK. It’s that bad.
The only place where it works is near nuclear research facilities, rocket assembly areas and where coal goes to China. That should give you an idea of their priorities when it comes to rail.
Some of it dates back to the Japanese occupation.
Robert Roman: I spent some time in RVN in 67/68/69 in the I Corps Region. Up and down Hwy1 over Hai Van Pass. The parallel railroad in those years was a mess. The rail yard in Da Nang was completely inoperable[ an understatement!]. Surfing the You Tube Video library of the current Vietnam rail system is an amazing adventure; To see trains running over those lines in current times, is surely an amazing return from the oblivion that the French started, and Allied Forces finished. A Trains article, I think would be a really interesting item for many of us who were there under less than ideal conditions, 45 or so years ago.
ANNA – Harry Harrison’s novel “Make Room Make Room” included trains. “Soylent Green”, the movie it inspired, did not.
Anna Harding, your mention of Vietnam brought to mind some interesting coverage of the South Vietnamese railroad in Trains Magazine in the early 1970s. I’ve seen some interesting YouTube videos of the current system. Hello, Editors: possibly this is a topic worth revisiting?
Mister Follett:
Didn’t Harry Harrison write about something similar in “A Transatlantic Tunnel Hurrah”?
The above comments are general in nature and do not form the basis for an attorney/client relationship. They do not constitute legal advice. I am not your attorney. Find your own damn lawyer.
Well, good. If this works out, operationally and politically, the final step will be a rail link from Japan across the Korea Strait. My blue-sky idea is an “upside-down suspension bridge”: an underwater tube suspended below shipping depths from a chain of floats. (Submarines? Y’ all be careful, now!)
Mister Landey:
I could hazard an answer but it would involve nations with very large military expenditures and other speculations.
To understand the Korean War you have to go back to the end of the Second World War and understand the partitioning which occurred not just in Europe (e.g., Germany and Austria and spheres of influence) but also in the Pacific Theatre – Japan was partitioned, so was Korea and so was Vietnam. With the immediate falling out between the western powers and the Soviet Union these countries became ripe for proxy wars between the two (then) superpowers and their allies.
In Vietnam the north won and the country was unified and is once again a single nation. Korea was stalemated by an armistice (North and South Korea are still technically at war with each other) and the whole thing has been overlaid by influences – some continuing to this day – by much larger powers blocking reunification for reasons of their own. At this point in time the internal cultures of the two Koreas are vastly different – the north is controlled by the Kim family in what appears to this observer to be a cult of personality, and the south is at least nominally a democratic republic.
All this does not mean that reconciliation is not possible. It does however mean that reconciliation is unlikely as long as other entities continue to use the two Koreas as puppet states. Leaderships in both nations recognize this and recognize that it would be to the benefit of both Koreas to reconcile. The problem is thus not how to reconcile but rather how to reconcile without provoking an undesirable response from one or more larger, third parties.
For what it is worth – and I am in a position to be able to render a valid opinion in this, South Korea has a well developed and experienced nuclear industry with all the trimmings. If they do not already have nuclear weapons it is because they have not decided to do so. They are most certainly capable of building them.
The above comments are general in nature and do not form the basis for an attorney/client relationship. They do not constitute legal advice. I am not your attorney. Find your own damn lawyer.
Why don’t they just end the state of war that has lasted far longer than most Koreans have even been alive?