Work Starts on Honam High-speed Rail

President Lee M.B. leads ground-breaking ceremony for the high-speed train line for southwestern regions

The Ministry of Land, Transport and Maritime Affairs held a ceremony on Dec. 4 to mark the start of the construction of the high-speed railroad linking Osong and Gwangju, part of the Honam High-speed Railroad scheduled to be completed in 2014, a year before the original schedule, the ministry announced on Dec. 5.
Osong, South Chungcheong Province, will be the transfer station for the projected new high-speed railroad which will ultimately end in Mokpo, South Jeolla Province, located in the southernmost tip of the Korean peninsula, extending for 230.9 km in distance from Osong.
The Osong and Gwangju section is the first part of the projected high-speed railroad, a distance of 182.3 km, and the work on the railroad will have 19 construction sections with two sections already being built from May 22 followed by the work on 5 sections starting on Sept. 30. Work on 8 sections commenced on Nov. 24 and the remaining 4 sections on Dec. 25.
The government set aside 11.27 trillion won to be invested in the projected high-speed train system, which will link Kongju, South ‘Chungcheong Province, Iksan, Jeongeup, North Jeolla Province and Gwangju, South Jeolla Province in the first stage of the work. The second stage of the project will link Gwangju and Mokpo, a distance of 48.6 km, targeted to be completed as early as possible following the completion of the first-stage work in 2014. The exact schedule for the third and last section of the railroad linking Gwangju and Mokpo will be set following the settlement of various issues that need to be solved including the discussion on whether the rail should stop at Muan International Airport, Mt. Geumsong Station and Naju in South Jeolla Province or skip them
MLTM took three years to sort out various problems to kick off construction on the new railroad including talks with 36 local counties and town-meetings to explain the project to the residents in locations where the railroad will pass through and their opinions have been reflected in the new project, Director Bang Yoon-sok of the Railroad Technology Safety Division of the Ministry of Land, Transport and Marine Affairs said.
The ministry will closely monitor the areas where environmental damage is feared from the railroad including the Mt. Gyeryeong region and conducting ecological surveys jointly with NGOs in the area to make the railroad environmentally friendly as much as possible, Director Bang said.
Officials of the ministry said the railroad will be built with their own technologies accumulated while building the Seoul-Busan High-speed Railroad from design to construction and strict quality control on the new rail would make it one of the globally famous high-speed rail systems in operation. They said they will try as hard as possible to finish the construction as early as possible to keep their promise with the people.
The new high-speed rail would cut the travel time between from Yonsan, Seoul to Gwangju to 1 hour 33 minutes cutting 66 minutes off from the current travel time, they said, making the Honam region a “half-day living region” from any where in the country, in addition to cutting logistics costs and increasing the volume of cargo on the new railroad. The travel time from Seoul to Mokpo will be cut to 1 hour and 46 minutes from 3 hours and 6 minutes on the new high-speed rail. The train will run at the maximum speed of 300 km per hour.
The economic effects during the construction period would amount to 20.7 trillion won in production in the region, 4.2 trillion won in wages paid, and jobs for 1.72 million people. The rail would bring growth engines to the region and help balanced development of Chungcheong and Jeolla provinces.
In the meantime, the Ministry of Land, Transport and Maritime Affairs formed a special safety inspection team to check the safety of railroads across the country in the wake of the 8-day strike by the railroad union from Nov. 26-Dec. 3, Director Bang Yoon-sok of the Railroad Technology Safety Division of the ministry said.
The Special Joint Railroad Safety Inspection Team, made up of 24 railroad safety technicians from the ministry, the Korea Rail Network Authority and the Korea Railroad Corp. conducted the safety check-up for six days from Dec. 4 divided into five groups.
They checked on the railroads in the Seoul area, the Seoul-Busan railroad, the Honam Line, and the Yongdong Line and also rail car lines, and other important facilities including the KTX, with special attention on rail car maintenance. nw

Dignitaries led by President Lee Myung-bak and Minister Chung Jong-hwan of the Ministry of Land, Transport, and Maritime Affairs at the ceremony Dec.4 to kick off the construction of the Osong-Gwangju High-speed Railroad, a section of the Honam High-speed Railroad linking Seoul and Mokpo, South Jeolla Province by 2014.

This map shows the nation’s railway network.