Expanding High-Speed Rail Network

Expansion of KTX Line will make any point in country reachable in 2 hours with connection of minor railroads

Executive Director Kim Byeong-ho of the High-Speed Railway Project Headquarters of the Korea Rail Network Authority is a veteran railroad official who has been in charge of the technology for the construction of high-speed railroads ever since the launching of the authority.
The rail authority has been taking charge of the design and construction of the high-speed rail network as a public entity that has the technology and experience to provide full test-runs using rail cars.
Timed with the G20 Seoul Summit on Nov.11-12, the Seoul-Busan High-speed Railroad will be fully opened with the dedication of the Daegu-Busan section, the last section of the KTX Line, allowing KTX trains to reach Busan, the end of the line, in two hours from Seoul. Following are what Exec. Dir. Kim had to say in a recent written interview with NewsWorld:
Question: Our country’s budget for high-speed rail projects has increased a lot. What do you think high-speed railway projects will be like in the future?
Answer: It will take time for conditions to change. Since 2004, the government’s transportation policies have been focused on the construction of railroads, but actual investments fell far short of what the government planned to do, showing that it is difficult to expect to see the government plans implemented early enough, although the budget has been increased by more than 2 trillion won.
Investments have been made in railroad construction projects aside from the KTX and projects in the Seoul area and, thus, it will be hard to expect the entire allocated budget to be executed as planned.
Q: What about this year’s budget and the progress of the projects?
A: The budget for this year increased by several trillion won, taking up about 50 percent of total budget allocated for the social overhead capital sector. But as I mentioned before, actual investments have not been made as budgeted. If the entire budget were released for the railroad projects, there would be loud objections from the road side, although the harbors and aviation sides might stay calm, as their budgets are smaller than those allocated for the railroad.
But when you look at the railroad length across the country, it is short of the 3,000 km that were built during the Japanese colonial period, except that the construction of the high-speed railroad helped to overtake that of the colonial period, invigorating railroad operations. The situation is nothing but natural, as most of those in high places making key decisions for the railroad policies are U.S.-educated. Europe, Japan and Korea have conditions to develop the railroad transportation business such as the concentration of traffic and certain lengths to satisfy the construction of railroads. But the United States has had to develop air traffic and highways due to its low concentration of traffic, which explains why those officials educated in the U.S. favor policies to build highways and airports to develop the country’s transportation infrastructure and, thus, tended to allocate more investments into highways and aviation as they learned in the U.S.
Other reasons for such low investments being made in railroad projects have been the lobbying by various interest groups including automakers and the rail vehicle makers, although it would not make any difference building railroads or highways. But it has been the same for the rail car makers and auto makers, with the auto makers getting the upper hand over the rail car makers as they are much more rich and powerful. They have been in favor of building more highways for their cars, and not much in favor of railroads.
When you look at Japan, many Japanese transportation experts were educated in Europe, especially in France where the railroads are highly developed, and they favor the construction of high-speed rail. In fact, they developed the Shinkansen faster than their European counterparts and built the system earlier than Europe.
At the present time in Japan, toll fees on elevated highways passing through centers of cities are high and it costs less to use public transportation in Japan, rather than driving cars, which led to the development of a public transportation system there.
In Korea, for long distance travel, driving cars is much less costly than public transportation, which is why the public transportation system is not well developed here.
In the case of Seoul, the city has been trying to catch up with Japan in the area of public transportation by operating subways and the high-speed electric rail around the capital, but their level is still below those of Japanese cities, although they have been running in the black.
In the case of high-speed rail, large investments have gone into the system to develop them and some sections have been making a profit with so many people favoring them. But the residents in southern Gyeonggi Province and southern Seoul, they have a hard time getting on the high-speed rail. The Honam High-speed Railroad is still operating in the red. If the Seoul area light electric line and the high-speed railroad are connected somehow, the number of passengers would increase greatly, and high-speed railroads will develop in balance across the country if they are expanded effectively.
Actually, the new railroads being built around the country and those planned for the future are aimed at meeting those requirements as stated above. Of course, it will take time to build new railroads and replace old rails on the existing railroads and make travel on railroads safer, but we are trying.
Q: What is the current status and outlook of the high-speed railroad as people begin to realize it is a low-carbon, green-growth business?
A: We can build the KTX with our own technologies. But we cannot go overseas with the capacity to build the high-speed railroads alone. We have to have our own supply of high-speed rail cars to go along. At the present time, makers of those high-speed trains can only imitate French engineering know-how. Those makers are doing their utmost to develop their own technologies to make high-speed rail cars, since we can only make money when we can produce our own high-speed rail cars with our own technologies.
Some people overseas look with suspicious eyes when Korea claims to have built its high-speed rail with its own technologies and are hampering our efforts to advance overseas. Thus, the development of our own technologies is needed more than ever to make high-speed rail cars, which is a high value-added business. It will take time for both high-speed rail construction and high-speed rail cars to make a joint overseas advance, as we should test if Korean rail cars can run on the high-speed rails we have built.
KTX2 doesn’t have competitiveness overseas as we hoped it would due to the view in some countries that it is French made as we constantly get French technological advice in certain areas. People overseas think that Korea still doesn’t have its own high-speed railroads and rail cars. We have to further develop our technologies for high-speed rail cars now, although we developed the KTX2 with our own technologies. We have to be able to export it to be able to call it our own.
Q: Can you please tell us about the decision to hold the opening of the Daegu-Busan section, the last section of the Seoul-Busan High-speed Railroad, to just before the G20 Seoul Summit?
A: The opening ceremony is scheduled to take place on Oct. 28 and commercial operation is slated to start Nov. 1, now that the test-run proved its safety. No ride on KTX by heads of state at the international gathering has been set, but we feel that there will be enough chances to show off the wonders of the technologies that went into building and operating the KTX Line to them with the various ministerial meetings set to take place in several locations around the country.
The significance of the opening of the Daegu-Busan section would be, first, the opening of the entire Seoul-Busan high-speed rail, and second is that although the first section depended on foreign technologies to a large extent, the second section was built with our own hands as a result of our doing our best to be technologically independent.
Q: What are some of the additional plans for making any town or city in the country reachable in two hours?
A: We plan to build KTX lines around the country, some crisscrossing and others circular. The railroads now being electrified, such as the Seoul-Chuncheon, Jeolla, Jungang, Janghang, Donghae, Kyung-jeon and Seohae Lines, will also be made into high-speed railroads to bring the maximum speed on those railroads up from 150 km/hr to 180-230 km/hr. The new railroads being planned, such as the Wonju-Gangnung, Wonju-Shin Gyeongju and others, will be readjusted so that they will run the KTX on those lines at the maximum speed of 250 km/hr.
The KTX will be made to run on railroads linking Pohang, Masan, Jeonju and Suncheon, among others, after they are linked with either the Seoul-Busan or Honam High-speed Railroads. From 2014, KTX will run on the Incheon Airport Railroad linking Incheon and Incheon International Airport. The Osong-Gwangju High-speed Railroad, part of the Honam High-speed Railroad will be opened in 2014 as scheduled.
Q: Can you please tell us any other ideas on the further development of railroads in Korea if you have any?
A: Personally, I have been thinking about the need for linking the railroad with North Korea. I think it will help the divided Koreas in many ways: it will be an occasion to prepare for reunification, the construction of infrastructure in the North to transport cargoes, which will provide jobs for North Koreans, and it will also benefit the South economically. I am sure that the government has also been thinking about such plans. But as always, it is a very sensitive matter and it is difficult to execute. nw

Executive-Director Kim Byeong-ho of the High-Speed Railway Project Headquarters of the Korea Rail Network Authority.