South Korea is one of the Asian countries that invested in and developed high-speed railways early, famous for the KTX train brand.
From a controversial project...
When it comes to Korean high-speed railways, it is impossible not to mention the country's first railway line - the KTX (Korea Train Express) high-speed railway.
Map of South Korea's high-speed rail network.
The then-acting President of South Korea, Goh Kun, in his speech at the opening of the railway on March 30, 2004, emphasized that "the world has entered an era where speed is one of the most important factors determining competitiveness". "High-speed railways are a symbol of national competitiveness and the foundation of national prosperity in the 21st century".
It must be said that, at that time, the opening of this railway line (phase 1 connecting Seoul and Busan) officially made Korea the 5th country in the world to successfully build a high-speed railway, behind only Japan, France, Germany and Spain.
With a speed of 300 km/h, Korea's high-speed train can take passengers from Seoul to Busan in just 2 hours and 40 minutes, and the time from Seoul to Mokpo (South Jeolla Province) is reduced to 2 hours and 58 minutes, saving 1 hour 30 minutes and 1 hour 40 minutes respectively compared to traveling by regular train.
The advent of the high-speed rail era has made it possible for Koreans to travel anywhere in the country in just half a day. This has led to a lifestyle revolution that has allowed people to overcome the constraints of time and space.
The capital Seoul and other localities are becoming closer, even people living in the South and North Chungcheong provinces, central Korea, can easily and conveniently commute to work at companies in the capital.
Few people know that the high-speed railway project that helped Korea "open its face" to the world initially encountered difficulties, if not to say it was a "controversial" project.
When the plan was first proposed, there were many objections, said Choi Jin-suk, director of the Railway Transportation Center at the Korea Transport Research Institute.
The reason is that the Saemaul train at that time took about 4 hours and 50 minutes to travel from Seoul to Busan. If these high-speed trains were put into operation, it would be reduced to 2 hours and 30 minutes, but in return, a huge amount of money, up to billions of dollars, would have to be poured into this plan.
Many experts in the transportation industry have said that it is a waste to spend such a large amount of money just to reduce two hours of travel time.
Conversely, proponents argue that one of the most precious and ever-dwindling resources available to humans is time.
Saving time also brings industrial and economic benefits. At that time, the economy was growing rapidly.
...to the world's leading country in high-speed rail
The construction of Korea's first high-speed railway line was long and relatively difficult.
The Seoul-Busan line construction project took 12 years to complete, with the participation of 30,000 workers and cost up to 12,000 billion won (equivalent to 10.5 billion USD at current exchange rates).
In 2004, Korea opened its first high-speed railway line, the 417km Seoul-Busan line. Also in the same year, the 374km Seoul-Mokpo line was opened. The KTX (Korea Train Express) high-speed train is the 5th highest speed train in the world, operating at a speed of over 300km/h. From here, Korea joined the group of countries developing advanced railway systems in the world.
After about 20 years, Korea has a high-speed rail network of 8 lines, total length 873km with maximum operating speed of 300km/h for passenger use only. The goal is to increase the speed to 400km/h by 2040.
Since then, the Korean high-speed rail network has been continuously expanded and newly built. By September 2023, Korea will have 1,644 high-speed trains (KTX, KTX-Sancheon, KTX-EUM, SRT), operating 375 trains/day, with an on-time rate of 99.8%; the number of passengers transported reaches 225,000/day, the average distance is 225.4km/passenger, the seat occupancy rate is from 61.6% - 89.2% of passengers booking tickets through applications.
In Korea, the high-speed railway system is exclusively for passenger transport with a maximum design speed of 350km/h. Meanwhile, traditional railway lines are used for freight trains and regular passenger trains, with a maximum design speed of 150km/h.
Korea does not design a shared high-speed rail line due to the loss of stopping time and signal information system.
However, high-speed trains can still operate on traditional railway lines but only stop at main stations on the line without stopping to pick up and drop off passengers. There are only 5-10 high-speed passenger trains or less on these railway lines each day.
Regarding technology, according to Giao Thong Newspaper's research, this country selects, applies and then develops its own technology on the basis of technology transfer.
It is worth noting that Korea also started building infrastructure before making a final decision on technology selection. The infrastructure elements in phase 1 must then be able to accommodate all types of technology.
After considering the three most modern high-speed rail technologies at that time: German technology with the ICE-2 train generation (280km/h), French - SNCF (TGV) with the TGV Atlantique train generation (300km/h) and Japanese with the Shinkansen 300 train generation (270km/h), Korea decided to choose France.
KTX high-speed train (Photo: internet).
The reason is that France has committed to strongly transferring technology to Korea while Germany and Japan have not committed to this . This is one of the decisive factors in choosing TGV technology for Korea's high-speed railway.
For the first Seoul - Busan high-speed railway line, the first 12 trains out of a total of 46 were manufactured in France and assembled in Korea, and the remaining 34 trains were manufactured and assembled in Korea. Hyundai Rotem Company was selected as the unit to receive the locomotive and wagon manufacturing technology and has been manufacturing in stages since 2001. Trains manufactured in Korea are designated as the KTX-1 generation.
In terms of technology transfer scope, it includes all components and spare parts needed to set up vehicle production lines, assembly lines, rolling stock and control systems; providing technical specifications for 29 items, accompanied by 350,000 technical documents, training and support for 2,000 technicians.
During this period, the 13th KTX train was the first train produced in Korea and was completed in 2002; by 2003, the 46th train was completed, marking the first milestone of technology localization in Korea.
Thus, 5 years after completely manufacturing the first 2 trains, Korea has achieved 93.8% localization rate of vehicles.
To achieve the goal of successful technology transfer, from 1996 to 2002, Korea implemented the High Speed Rail Technology Development Project. In which, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport of Korea played a central role, the participating ministries included the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, the Ministry of Science and Technology; the agency in charge of the project was the Korea Railway Research Institute. The project involved 4,934 researchers from 129 organizations and units including: 82 enterprises, 18 research institutes and 29 universities.
With the development of science and technology, Korea later developed the KTX-2 generation train on its own based on the adoption and adjustment of the KTX-1 generation. The Korean train has all the characteristics of the original TGV train, which is to use centralized power and a GMS communication system.
In 2021, Korea Railroad Corporation (KORAIL) launched five new technology KTX EMU-250 high-speed trains with a speed of 260km/h on the Seoul - Gyeongju Jungang line. These are the first high-speed trains using distributed propulsion technology to operate in Korea. The EMU-250 was developed based on the HEMU-430X, a 430km/h prototype train designed by Hyundai Rotem in 2012.
Thanks to the application of distributed power technology, if a problem occurs in any part, the train can still run safely.
The trains are also expected to improve energy efficiency and reduce wind resistance, which will allow South Korea to cut greenhouse gas emissions from 235,000 tons in 2019 to 165,000 tons by 2029.
Currently, 87.5% of centralized train control (CTC) systems enable KORAIL to check and monitor actual train operations, preventing possible accidents.
Source: https://www.baogiaothong.vn/cuoc-cach-mang-toc-do-cua-duong-sat-han-quoc-192241122001946556.htm
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