Seoul-Busan High-Speed Rail in Full Operation

Daegu-Busan section of the line completed to link Busan, the terminus of the KTX Line

The Daegu-Busan section of the Seoul-Busan High-Speed Railroad, which has been in test operations since June 3, began commercial operations on Nov. 1. It is the last section of the high-speed rail, completed in eight years. A ceremony took place on Oct. 28 at the Busan Station, the terminus of the Seoul-Busan High-Speed Rail, also known as the KTX Line, with a slew of dignitaries in attendance led by Prime Minister Kim Hwang-shik; Rep. Song Kwang-ho, chairman of the Land, Transport and Maritime Affairs Committee of the National Assembly; Minister Chung Jong-hwan of the Ministry of Land, Transport, and Maritime Affairs; and Busan Mayor Hur Nam-shik. With the full opening of the longest high-speed rail line in Korea, it will take two hours and 18 minutes to travel to Busan, the Korea Rail Authority said.
When the Seoul-Daegu KTX Line was opened in April 2004, it brought with it a revolution to the country’s transportation industry. But it took such a long time to complete the Daegu-Busan section and passengers had to rely on the existing railroad to reach for six more years until it was completed. The newly added high-speed section includes stops at Shin Gyeongju, Gumi, Osong and Ulsan with a total length of 130.8 km, stretching the length of the Seoul-Busan High-Speed Railroad to 423.9 km, cutting 22 minutes from the current time.
Prime Minister Kim Hwang-shik, in his speech at the ceremony held at Busan Station to open the new high-speed rail section, said the government will transfer the focus of its transportation system policy to the railroad network to build a green KTX high-speed rail network to strengthen the base for green growth and with the aim of reaching any point in the country within an hour and half from anywhere else in the country.
He recalled that the Mt. Cheongsong tunnel and other problems in the way of building the Daegu-Busan section were resolved with the wisdom collected from people all over the country.
Executive Director Kim Byeong-ho of the High-Speed Rail Project at the Korea Rail Network, said a lot of foreign technologies went into building the first stage of the high-speed rail from Seoul to Daegu, but the second stage linking Daegu and Busan, with stops in Shin Gyeongju, Gumi, Osong and Ulsan, was built with Korea’s own technologies from design to construction based on the foreign technologies used in the first stage to secure a base for the nation’s independent high-speed rail technology.
The Korea Rail Network has fully tested the newly-opened section including the rails and other facilities before running the KTX at the maximum speed of 300 km/hour in October and the launching of commercial operations in early November.
Kim, who directed the entire construction of the Daegu-Busan section, recalls that the hardest part of the project was the work on the Wonhyo and Bokan tunnels. He said the Wonhyo tunnel ran into difficulty due to complaints filed by the towns nearby and the Bokan tunnel encountered problems due to the hard earth structure, which took six months to break through. Another factor that made the work on the section troublesome was that it was first time concrete was used to build rail beds, instead of pebbles. The concrete rail beds makes train rides smoother than those made by pebbles, although it is a little bit noisier.
KoRail, the operator of the high-speed rail, went for the concrete rail beds for operation and maintenance reasons, as many other countries in the world do. But the decision has not been easy since the KTX must run at a speed of 300 km per hour, a speed with which the Korean railroad industry is unfamiliar, with safety being the foremost concern.
Kim said the decision was the right one, as concrete rail beds cost double, but the maintenance costs will come to only one-tenth the usual, making it economically justified. The noises from the train running on concrete rail beds are louder than other rail beds, but they have been able to hold down the noise with cement blocks that have been specially developed for that purpose.
He hoped that the inclusion of Shin Gyeongju and Ulsan in the Daegu-Busan section would increase the number of passengers on the high-speed rail. The high-speed rail should also connect a number of key regions in the country such as Gangwon Province, Mokpo-Jeju Island and the central inland regions as early as possible, he said.
Construction firms that worked for the construction of rail beds in the Daegu-Busan section included Hyundai E&C, SK Construction, GS E&C, Samsung E&C, Daewoo Construction, Lotte Construction, Hyundai Development, Doosan Construction and Daelim Industrial, among others. nw

A slew of dignitaries led by Prime Minister Kim Hwang-sik and Busan Mayor Hur Nam-shik cut the tapes to officially open the Seoul-Busan KTX High-speed Rail Line on Nov. 1 as the last section of the railroad linking Daegu and Busan was completed and began operation.