Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Faster Trains? Hell Yes!

At present, high speed rail lines in South Korea form an upside down "Y" with a line going from Busan to Seoul and another going from Mokpo to Seoul.  You cannot, for example, take a high speed train from Mokpo to Busan without first getting off the train in Daejeon and then taking a taxi to a different train station across town to catch a completely different train.



So this is exciting news from the JoongAng Daily.  The government announced its plans to expand the KTX Korean railroad network.
High-speed rail networks will be expanded to connect major cities, and travel time within 95 percent of Korea will be reduced to two hours or less by 2020, the government announced yesterday. 
Korea Train Express (KTX) will run on many more lines, and conventional trains will be enhanced to run at a maximum speed of 250 kilometers per hour (155 miles per hour). KTX will be connected to Incheon International Airport in 2012. 
About time!  Why they opened the airport in 2001 and gave people no way to reach it by train or subway is something I could not comprehend when I first arrived in South Korea.  I think just finally connecting the rail system to the airport is bigger news than the extending of the high speed rail lines.

The article has more details if you want to follow the link, but here is the philosophy behind this push.
...
Roads have reached their limits, and it’s time to utilize railroads to make the whole country fall into an hour and a half travel zone,” said President Lee Myung-bak in a meeting held at Korea Railroad Research Institute in Uiwang, Gyeonggi. “This will not only create economic advantages but also provide us with a grand strategy to stay competitive for the upcoming era of green growth and to address the issue of climate change.
The whole world is competing for high-speed railroad technologies, and the U.S. has just begun to invest in this area,” Lee continued. “I hope Korea will become an epicenter of high-speed railroad technology.” ...
I obviously do not drive in Korea, but I have heard Koreans complain about driving times on holiday weekends.  The roads are so bad, I was told a drive from Mokpo to Seoul over Chuseok holiday can take over twelve hours.  More and more Koreans are buying cars (to live the "Korean dream" I suppose).  Building these railings will hopefully keep more people off the roads and reduce traffic congestion and auto emissions in Korea.

Likewise, as flying becomes more and more economically impractical, new high-speed rail technologies will be developed.  Even though South Korea cannot take their trains any further than the border they share with North Korea, they can still develop technology that can be exported to other countries and greatly benefit from them economically.

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