Yonhap
12/2/2007
The two Koreas have agreed on the daily schedule for a cross-border freight train that will resume service later this month for the first time in over 50 years, the South Korean Unification Ministry said on Sunday.
The prime ministers of South and North Korea met in Seoul last month and agreed to restart the railway service, which will traverse the heavily armed border, on Dec. 11. The train will run between the South’s Munsan station and the North’s Bongdong station as a follow-up to the October summit between their leaders in Pyongyang.
The ministry said a freight train will depart from Munsan at 9:00 a.m. each weekday and reach the North Korean border station of Panmun before returning to the South at 2:00 p.m.
The train, which will not operate during weekends, will extend its route to Bongdong once the construction of a cargo-handling facility there is completed, the ministry said. The Bongdong station serves as a gateway to an inter-Korean industrial park in Kaesong.
The soon-to-be-resumed service is expected to facilitate transportation of raw materials and manufactured goods between South Korea and the North’s Kaesong park, the ministry said.
The 19.8-km route between the two Koreas was severed in the midst of the 1950-53 Korean War and has since remained closed.
