South and North Korea are wrapping up their 2018 in just as positively as they started it.
Officials from the two Koreas held a ground-breaking ceremony on Wednesday for their joint railway and road projects north of the border..
Most will remember that the leaders of the two Koreas promised to move ahead with the project in April,... but the two sides have actually been making on-and-off-again attempts to link their transport networks for almost 20 years.
Oh Jung-hee reports.
Railways running across the Korean Peninsula have been cut since the two Koreas' division after the Korean War.
In June 2000, the leaders of South and North Korea met for the first time... and their meeting led to an agreement to restore the peninsula's western Gyeongui rail line.
And that's how this train station, Dorasan, came into being in 2002.
Located only 700 meters away from the demilitarized zone,... Dorasan is the northernmost train station in the South.
But, despite the two Koreas' grand goal of restoring the railway, few trains have traveled along this route.
After a test-run in 2007, cargo trains used to cross the border on their way to the now-suspended inter-Korean factory park, the Gaeseong Industrial Complex,... but those trains only ran from 2007 to 2008.
Since then, Dorasan station has rather served more as a transit office between the two Koreas than a rail station.
"We've come 56 kilometers from Seoul to arrive at this border station,... and from here, there's another 205 kilometers to go to reach Pyeongyang. But, as you can see, the railway tracks here that stretch into North Korea are empty. South Korean trains that arrive here can't go any further. This is the last point on South Korea's western railway. But this station will also become the first train station heading to North Korea, once the inter-Korean railways are connected."
And this... means a lot more than just increasing inter-Korean trade.
It means that South Korea -- which can only trade goods with Eurasian countries using shipping -- would be connected to the continent's rail network, ending decades of isolation.
The Trans-Korean Railway will be linked directly to the Trans-Manchurian and Trans-Siberian Railways... which offer routes to other railways that cut through Eurasia.
The distance goods have to travel would drop by 10-thousand kilometers compared to shipping, reducing time and costs.
North Korea is well aware of this fact.
A senior North Korean government economist told the Associated Press... the Korean Peninsula has a great advantage in terms of location... and if Pyeongyang uses railways from South Korea through Siberia, then other countries would prefer these rails to shipping.
South Korea was able to join the Organization for Cooperation between Railways back in June, upon approval by 28 member states including North Korea.
Though the actual railway construction won't begin yet and many more surveys need to be done, Wednesday's groundbreaking ceremony... and Seoul'
