History
The first section of the line was opened on October 1, 1924, between Gimcheon and Jeomchon. Still under Japanese occupation, the line was extended to Andong in October 1937, but that section was dismantled to use the material elsewhere as Japan's military faced material shortages during World War II.
Following the 1961 coup, the Supreme Council for National Reconstruction started South Korea's first five-year plan, which included a construction program to complete the railway network, to foster economic growth. Under the program, the Gyeongbuk Line was extended to Yeongju, to create a connection both with the Jungang Line and the Yeongdong Line, allowing the transport of coal from the latter. Work began in May 1962, the 28.9 km (18.0 mi) from Jeomchon to Yecheon was opened in January 1966, the 29.7 km (18.5 mi) from Yecheon to Yeongju was opened on October 10, 1966. The complete line is 115.2 km (71.6 mi) long, and remains single-tracked and unelectrified.
A 22.3 km (13.9 mi) long branch from Jeomchon to Mungyeong, the Mungyeong Line, was opened on May 10, 1969.
Read more about this topic: Gyeongbuk Line
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“What you don’t understand is that it is possible to be an atheist, it is possible not to know if God exists or why He should, and yet to believe that man does not live in a state of nature but in history, and that history as we know it now began with Christ, it was founded by Him on the Gospels.”
—Boris Pasternak (1890–1960)
“In history the great moment is, when the savage is just ceasing to be a savage, with all his hairy Pelasgic strength directed on his opening sense of beauty;—and you have Pericles and Phidias,—and not yet passed over into the Corinthian civility. Everything good in nature and in the world is in that moment of transition, when the swarthy juices still flow plentifully from nature, but their astrigency or acridity is got out by ethics and humanity.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“A man acquainted with history may, in some respect, be said to have lived from the beginning of the world, and to have been making continual additions to his stock of knowledge in every century.”
—David Hume (1711–1776)