photo: Roman Harak, CC BY-SA 2.0 / Flickr/North Korean metro, opened in September 1973 by former President Kim Il-Sung.
South Korea is restarting work on a railway towards North Korea that has been frozen since 2016. The government plans to rebuild 9.3 km of the Gyeongwon Line between Baengmagoji and Woljeong-ri, close to the Demilitarized Zone.
The project first started in 2015, but physical construction stopped a year later as relations with North Korea deteriorated. Ten years on, Seoul is preparing to return to the site.
According to South Korean Ministry of Unification, work planned for 2026 includes a new environmental review, budget revisions and mine clearance. Full construction is expected from 2027, with completion planned for 2029. The current project cost is around KRW 179 billion (approx. EUR 105 million), with about KRW 37 billion (EUR 22.6 million) having already been spent before the project was suspended.
That means that aside from returning to an unfinished construction site, the government will now need to check designs, permits and technical assumptions prepared more than a decade ago again.
A Ten-Year Pause Left More Than an Unfinished Track
When work stopped in 2016, land acquisition and design had already progressed, but very little of the railway itself had been built. According to South Korean media reports, only around 3% of the roadbed had been completed. The government is now reviewing the environmental assessment and revising the project budget before construction resumes.
The line is not being rebuilt under the same conditions in which it was designed: construction prices have changed, environmental requirements may have changed, and mine clearance is still necessary around the border area. Technical standards also need to be checked before old plans can be reused.
Trains Will Still Stop Before North Korea, Even in 2029
The completion date does not mean that trains will be able to run from Seoul into North Korea. The Baengmagoji–Woljeong-ri project covers only the South Korean section. After Woljeong-ri, about 2.4 km still separates the railway from the Military Demarcation Line inside the DMZ.
South Korea cannot build that section on their own because construction inside the DMZ would require an agreement with Pyongyang and access coordinated through the United Nations Command. The same arrangements were needed during earlier inter-Korean railway work. United Nations Command notes that it approved crossings and access to the DMZ during railway inspections carried out by the two Koreas in 2018.
So even if the current project is finished on schedule, South Korea will only have rebuilt the railway as far as the point it can reach without North Korean cooperation.
Another 20.6 km Section Still Needs to Reopen First
There is also a gap south of Baengmagoji. According to the latest plan reported by NoCut News, passenger services on the 20.6-km section between Yeoncheon and Baengmagoji have been suspended since 2019. The government plans to restore that section by around the end of 2027.
The route would therefore have to be rebuilt in stages. From Seoul, trains would first need to reach Yeoncheon. The reopened 20.6 km section would then take them to Baengmagoji. Another 9.3 km would continue to Woljeong-ri. After that comes the remaining DMZ section and, beyond it, North Korea.
Seoul Is Planning Rails While Pyongyang Builds Barriers
The project is moving in the opposite direction from North Korean policy. According to Reuters, in 2024, Pyongyang physically cut sections of the Gyeongui and Donghae road and railway corridors on its side of the border. North Korea also blew up road links, laid mines and reinforced border barriers.
Even though they were different inter-Korean corridors, Seoul is keeping open the possibility of future railway links, while Pyongyang has spent the past two years removing infrastructure that once symbolised inter-Korean cooperation. North Korea has also moved away from its previous policy of eventual reunification and now formally treats South Korea as a hostile state.
There is currently no agreement that would allow the Gyeongwon Line to continue north after Woljeong-ri.
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Why Wonsan Is Part of the Discussion Again
Before the division of Korea, the Gyeongwon Line connected Seoul with Wonsan on the east coast. Wonsan gained new attention after North Korea opened the Wonsan-Kalma coastal tourist zone in 2025, a large resort designed for around 20,000 visitors, according to BBC.
The South Korean government has since included Wonsan-Kalma in longer-term ideas for inter-Korean tourism. One possible future route discussed by Seoul would connect the capital with Cheorwon, the DMZ and eventually Wonsan, but for now, there is no railway service plan behind that idea.
South Korea says that the line can support tourism and regional transport even if cross-border services remain impossible. Cheorwon already attracts visitors because of its DMZ sites, war history and natural areas. A restored railway would make those destinations easier to reach from Seoul.