Everyone knows I have a slightly morbid interest in our neighbors-to-the-north. I mean, to the north of Ilsan, here – not to the north of the US. I stumbled across a flickr photo-stream with lots of really bleak, desolate pictures of the railroad trip between Pyeongyang and Uiju. Interestingly, this Uiju is the same Uiju referenced in the name “Gyeongui Line” (as in railroad line) which means “Gyeong[capital-and-]Ui[ju]” – the same way that a name like “B&O Railroad” references the endpoints of the original railroad (Baltimore and Ohio). Gyeongui is now the name for the high-speed commuter-rail line that runs right through Ilsan, about a block from my work. It doesn’t make it to Uiju nowadays, though.
I am really fascinated to look at this guy’s pictures – they’re not the standard “handler-mediated” photography that emerges from North Korea.
Below, here’s a map of the original Gyeongui line (and Gyeongbu line) that connected Busan with Uiju through Seoul, along the length of Korea, constructed over 100 years ago (note the map is in Japanese, who were the soon-to-be-dominant colonial power that constructed the railroad).
