Trans-Korean railway acquires a tangible contour

A specialized train has been formed in Khabarovsk (the administrative center of the biggest Russian Far Eastern region) to do topographic, geodesic, engineering and geological work on the route of the future Trans-Korean Railway.

As the chief of the Russian Far Eastern Railway, Viktor Popov, said, on October 23 the train will go to North Korea.

In the course of thirty-seven days more than a hundred specialists of the expedition will survey the route in the section between the Russian border station of Khasan (the Maritime Territory) and the North Korean town of Radjin.

Two years ago, two expeditions of the Far Eastern Railway passed through the entire 800-kilometer route from the station of Khasan to the demarcation line between North Korea and South Korea, surveying the future Trans-Korean Railway, said Viktor Popov.

He noted that Germany, Italy, Finland and Japan had shown interest in the construction of the Trans-Korean Railway which will then join the Russian Trans-Siberian Railway.

Bankers, officials and businessmen of these and other states are studying now the question of organizing an international consortium for delivering goods along the route Asia - Europe - Asia via Russia. This route is much shorter than the sea route through the Pacific and Indian Oceans and the Suez Canal.

The construction of the Trans-Korean Railway with access to the Trans-Siberian Railway has been fixed in the Moscow Declaration of August 4, 2001.