The Pukbunaeryuk Line, also called the HyesanâÂÂManp'o Ch'à Ângnyà Ân Line after the only completed stage of three planned stages, is an electrified standard-gauge secondary trunk line of the Korean State Railway in Chagang and Ryanggang Provinces, North Korea, connecting the Manp'o Line at Manp'o to the Paektusan Ch'à Ângnyà Ân Line at Hyesan. It also connects to the China Railway Meiji Railway via the Ji'an Yalu River Border Railway Bridge between Manp'o and Meihekou, China.
The Pukbunaeryuk Line was to have been a northern eastâÂÂwest trunk line of on the Manp'oâÂÂHyesanâÂÂMusanâÂÂHoeryà Âng route, but this plan has not been realised.
There are 42 stations on the line, of which Chasà Âng, Hwap'yà Âng, P'op'yà Âng Ch'à Ângnyà Ân, and Mint'ang are dedicated freight consolidation points; the stations of Chà Ânp'yà Âng, Tuji, Sinp'a Ch'à Ângnyà Ân, Ryanggang Sinsang, and Insan are served only by passenger trains. The line has 76 tunnels totalling over in length, and 116 bridges with a total length of over - bridges make up 3.3% of the total length of the line, whilst tunnels account for 12.8% of the total route length.
There are locomotive facilities at Manp'o and Hyesan, and formerly at P'op'yà Âng; Hyesan also has shops for maintenance of passenger and freight cars.
Having been the only major eastâÂÂwest trunk line at the time, the P'yà Ângra Line had become overly congested by the 1970s, as all eastâÂÂwest traffic - even that moving between the northwest and the northeast - had to travel via the P'yà Ângra Line. To alleviate the burden, President Kim Il Sung ordered the construction of a new, northern eastâÂÂwest transversal line in August 1980. This line, which was to have made use of parts of existing lines where possible, in addition to newly built trackage, was to have connected Manp'o in the west with Hoeryà Âng in the east. This would have resulted in the creation of a direct connections between the Manp'o Line in the northwest and the Hambuk Line in the northeast of the country, allowing traffic between these two areas to avoid the P'yà Ângra Line. This would also have significantly shortened the travelled distances.
The Pukbunaeryuk Line, as the planned line was called (ë¶Âë¶Â, pukpu, means "northern"), was to have been built in three stages: Manp'o to Hyesan, Hyesan to Musan, and Musan to Hoeryà Âng.
In 1959, the Korean State Railway opened the Unbong Line, a line from Manp'o to Unbong, to assist with the construction of the Unbong Dam on the Yalu River which had begun in October of that year. The first stage of the northern trunk line, from Manp'o to Hyesan, made use of the entirety of the Unbong Line. A new passenger-friendly station was built at Unbong, called Sinunbong Station (="New Unbong Station") (the previous Unbong Station, which had been the terminus of the Unbong Line and, after the construction of the new line, became the terminus of the truncated Unbong Line, was later renamed Kuunbong Station - that is, "Old Unbong Station", and Sinunbong Station became simply Unbong Station). Work on the first stage was started at both ends in 1981; construction went slowly, with the from Sinunbong to Chasà Âng and the from Hyesan to Huju being completed only on 27 November 1987. Kim Jong Il ordered the formation of youth work brigades who, moving over of earth and blasting millions of cubic metres of rock, completed construction of the final section between Chasà Âng and Huju in 1988.
A second stage, a long line from Hyesan to Musan on the Musan Line via Poch'à Ân, Samjiyà Ân, Taehongdan and Musan counties was planned and construction was started, but was subsequently suspended. The line was to have shared the track of the Paektusan Ch'à Ângnyà Ân Line from Hyesan to Wiyà Ân; from there, the Wiyà ÂnâÂÂKarim section of the narrow-gauge Samjiyà Ân Line and the KarimâÂÂPoch'à Ân section of the Poch'à Ân Line were to have been converted to standard gauge; from Poch'à Ân a new line would have been built to Rimyà Ângsu, and from there, the Rimyà ÂngsuâÂÂSamjiyà ÂnâÂÂMotka section of narrow-gauge line was to have been regauged. From Samjiyà Ân there was to be a new line built via Taehongdan town, Nongsa-rodongjagu, and Samjang-rodongjagu to Hà Ângam on the Paengmu Line, from where the existing narrow-gauge line to Musan was to have been regauged.
The third stage of the Pukbunaeryuk Line project was to have been the construction of a new line from Musan to Hoeryà Âng on the Hambuk Line. From Musan, the line was to have run through Musan County along the Tumen River via Ch'ilsà Âng-ri and Saegà Âl-li, continuing from there along a newly built line to Yusà Ân, the terminus of the Hoeryà Âng Colliery Line; this line would have been absorbed into the Pukpu Line.
The first stage had been completed at the end of 1988; by then, some works had begun on the second stage, but due to the DPRK's economic crisis of the 1990s, construction was eventually abandoned. Electrification of the existing portion of the line was begun in 1991 with the goal of completing it in time for Kim Il Sung's 80th birthday on 15 April 1992; however, it wasn't until 1993 that the electrification of the entire Manp'oâÂÂHyesan line was completed.
By the end of the 2000s, the line was in such poor condition that the operation of trains was nearly impossible; citing this, in April 2011 Kim Jong Il once again mobilised work brigades of the Kim Il-sung Socialist Youth League to undertake the reconstruction of the line; the refurbishment work was completed in November 2013.
It is one of the lightest-travelled of all trunk lines in the DPRK. There are a number of passenger trains on the line, including commuter trains serving Rimt'o. Most of the freight traffic on the line is military, but logs are also transported along the line from the Kamae Plateau. Ore from the March 5 Youth Mine is delivered to Chasà Âng Station for loading onto trains by means of a ropeway conveyor.
A yellow background in the "Distance" box indicates that section of the line is not electrified.