Samjiyon railway part of 2012 plans
Except for the monuments glorifying leader Kim Jong Il and his father, Kim Il Sung, the founder of North Korea, hardly anything new has gone up in decades. By night, the city is so quiet you can hear a baby crying from far across the Taedong River, which cuts through the center of town.
Yet these days, high-rise apartments in shades of pink are taking shape near the Pueblo, the American spy ship captured in 1968 and still anchored in the river. A tangle of construction cranes juts into the skyline near Pothong Gate, a re-creation of the old city wall. About 100,000 units are to be built over the next four years.
A modernistic silver-sided box of a conference center is already complete. Theaters and hotels are being renovated. Streets have been repaved and buildings repainted.
Even North Korea’s most notorious clunker, an unfinished 105-story hotel that looms vacant over the city, is under construction again after sitting idle for nearly two decades.
All are slated for completion by 2012, the 100th anniversary of the birth of Kim Il Sung. The deadline appears to have taken on new urgency for the appearance-conscious North Koreans, who fret that their capital has become a laughingstock.
Well, the Daily NK has chimed in with some other preparations underway for the 2012 deadline:
North Korean authorities have started construction for expanding the railway connecting Hyesan, Yangkang Province and Samjiyeon from a narrow to a broad railroad.
An inside source from Yangkang Province relayed in a phone conversation with the Daily NK on October 16th, that “Since the 1st of this month, the ‘Shock Brigade for the Propagation of Party Ideology (the June 18th Shock Brigade)’ came and started preparing for expanding the railway between Hyesan and Samjiyeon. Now, they are building housing for brigade members who will begin construction in early November.”
According to the source, the Hyesan-Samjiyeon railway was a “narrow gauge (railroad)” which connected the rail between Hyesan and Bocheonbo to Samjiyeon Lake in the mid-1980s and only small cars which fit 38 people could travel on it. Not only was it a railroad on which small trains could travel, it suffered significant damage in the 1994 mass flood and ceased operations until recently.
The North Korean authorities believed that Samjiyeon played an important role to propagandize Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il’s revolutionary ideology, so they attempted to build a “broad gauge” between Hyesan and Samjiyeon when Kim Il Sung was alive. However, the project is still under construction due to the nation’s weak financial predicament and rough construction environment.
The source relayed, “The number of construction workers totals approximately 50,000 people, including 30,000 ‘June 18 Shock Brigade members and 20,000 others mobilized from rural areas, enterprise officials, and farms. The area of construction is approximately 70km, but it is a rough, mountainous terrain, so the construction will not be easy.”
If readers know of any other 2012 preparations, please add them in the comments.
