The Kŭmgangsan Electric Railway, later known as the Kŭmgangsan Line, was a railway line that formerly ran between Ch'ŏrwŏn to Naegŭmgang, on the inner side of Mount Kŭmgang. At Ch'ŏrwŏn, the line connected to the Kyŏngwŏn Line of the Chosen Government Railway (Sentetsu) the Kyŏngwŏn Line was split between Korail's Gyeongwon Line in South Korea and the Kangwŏn Line of the Korean State Railway.
Similar in many respects to the Alishan Forest Railway in Taiwan, the railway was built with the aim of turning the Mount Kŭmgang area into a major tourist destination. Mount Kŭmgang had already been one of the Korean Peninsula's most famous tourist destinations, but the terrain and location made access very difficult; the opening of the Kŭmgangsan Electric Railway overcame this, and turned the area into a booming tourist spot.
Originally opened in 1924 by the Kŭmgangsan Electric Railway Co., Ltd. (Korean: 금강산전기철도 주식회사 Kŭmgangsan Chŏn'gi Ch'ŏldo Chusikhoesa; Japanese: 金剛山電気鉄道株式会社 Kongōsan Denki Tetsudō Kabushiki Kaisha), the line held the distinction of being the first as well as the longest electrified mainline railway in Korea, Hydroelectric power from dams constructed along the line was used to supply power to the railway, which made use of Japan's latest technological capabilities of the time. The company's headquarters were located in Oech'ŏn-ri in Ch'ŏrwŏn-gun, and it had branch offices in Tokyo in Japan, as well as in Gyeongseong (Seoul).
After the end of the Pacific War and the subsequent partition of Korea, the entirety of the line, being north of the 38th parallel, was taken over by North Korea's Korean State Railway, which called it the Kŭmgangsan Line, operating it until the outbreak of the Korean War in 1950. The line was destroyed during the war, and the ceasefire line split the line between North and South Korea, and it remains abandoned ever since.
History
Formation of the Company (1918 to 1924)
Although the Mount Kŭmgang area had long been one of the most famous places in Korea for mountain sightseeing, access was difficult due to the severe topography and poor roads. In April 1918, Taminosuke Kume (久米民之助) visited the area and, having been immediately taken with it, believed that a railway to the area would have great potential not only for the development of tourism, but of agriculture and mining as well. Kume, who had designed the Main Gate Iron Bridge at the Tokyo Imperial Palace, as well as had undertaken construction work for the Chosen Government Railway (Sentetsu), the South Manchuria Railway, the Taiwan Government Railway, and several railways in Japan, sent railway engineer Togo Ōgawa in July 1918 to undertake an in-depth survey of the area.
As the west side of the Mount Kŭmgang area is much less steep than the eastern side, Kume's attention focussed there, eventually deciding that the new line should be built from Ch'ŏrwŏn on Sentetsu's Kyŏngwŏn Line. Although geography and topography did play a role in the decision to build an electrified rail line, the primary motivation for the electrification was that the company was the possibility of constructing a number of hydroelectric power plants in the Kumgangsan area using the pumped-storage system - which at the time counted as advanced technology.
The Chosen Hydropower Company (朝鮮水力電気株式会社, Chōsen Suiryokudenki Kabushiki Kaisha; 조선 수력전기 주식회사, Chosŏn Suryŏgjŏn'gi Chusikhoesa) had held the water rights to the rivers in the area. Kume thus had to acquire these rights, and after giving a detailed proposal to Katsujiro Okamoto, the Chief of the Electricity Division of the Communications Bureau of the Government-General of Korea appointed by Terauchi Masatake, the transfer of rights was approved. Okamoto later became Senior Managing Director of the Kŭmgangsan Electric Railway, serving in that role from 1931 until his death in 1938.
Kume then set out to gather others to support and promote the project. Kyōhei Magoshi (馬越恭平), who had formerly been president of the Mitsui Group's Dai-Nippon Beer (predecessor of today's Sapporo Brewery and Asahi Breweries), became a promoter of the railway, and later became its second president. Sakajirō Furukawa, designer of the Sasako Tunnel on the Chūō Main Line in Japan,『日本之精華』愛媛県之部 p.6 former president of the Japan Society of Civil Engineers, and who had had extensive railway experience working with the Japanese Government Railways, the Chinese Eastern Railway, and the South Manchuria Railway also joined on, eventually becoming the railway's third president after the death of Kyōhei Magoshi.
With a group finally in place, on 25 March 1919, an application was submitted to the Government-General of Korea for permission to build the railway, along with an application for subsidies, and on 25 June applications for permission to build the necessary power plants were submitted. On 11 August 1919, all of these applications were approved, clearing the way for the realisation of the railway project.
On 22 August 1919, a meeting was held for the organisation of the Kŭmgangsan Electric Railway Company, Ltd., and 100,000 shares were issued to raise funds for the project, of which 20,000 were allocated for the recruitment of general investors. The economic boom and the optimism of the post-First World War period played a major role in the great interest in these shares. Finally, on 16 December 1919 the general meeting to establish the Kŭmgangsan Electric Railway Company, Ltd. Taminosuke Kume was elected president, and the company was officially registered on 22 December.
In September 1920, construction of the tunnels necessary for the pumped-storage system for the hydroelectric dams began, in June 1921 construction of the dams began, and in September 1921 construction of the railway was launched. Although the line was initially planned to be built to the cape gauge in standard use in Japan, under Furukawa's guidance it was changed to standard gauge in 1921 to allow for direct interchange with Sentetsu. In 1923 the first phase of construction of the railway and the hydropower stations was completed, and the opening of the line for revenue operation was scheduled for November 1923. However, the Great Kantō earthquake of that year destroyed the electric generators for the trains which had been ordered from Shibaura Manufacturing in Tokyo, setting the plans back. To compensate, steam locomotives and passenger coaches were borrowed from the South Manchuria Railway, and with these, revenue service was started on the section from Ch'ŏrwŏn and Kimhwa on 1 August 1924. Electrification of the line was completed in October, and operation of electric trains commenced on 27 October of that year, with both steam and electric trains running until 1 January 1925.
As of March 1924, the Kŭmgangsan Electric Railway Company was the third largest of the 39 electric utilities in all Korea.
Opening of the railway and its heyday (1924 to 1942)
The Government-General of Korea had a system of subsidies that it offered to promote the establishment of privately owned railways in order to improve the transportation system of the Korean Peninsula; naturally, the Kŭmgangsan Electric Railway also received these subsidies. These were originally supposed to be for a period of ten years from the start of construction, but in 1921 this was extended to 15 years, and then in 1939, for certain railways this was extended to 25 years. Thus the Kŭmgangsan Electric Railway, which began construction in 1921, received subsidies from the Government-General all the way until the end of Japanese rule. For the Kŭmgangsan Electric Railway, whose operating profits were initially not as high as had been expected, these subsidies proved to be of great significance.
Although the construction of the hydroelectric power stations and the railway itself proceeded smoothly despite the severe winter climate and the difficult terrain, two significant difficulties surfaced to present challenges to the Kŭmgangsan Electric Railway. The worldwide economic depression affected Japan and Korea along with the rest of the world, and though the company's shares were quickly bought up, the financial troubles of the investors led to about 7,000 shares being bought back by the company's president and executives; the directors went to great lengths to ensure the survival of the company, to the extent that president Taminosuke Kume sold his estate in Yoyogi for 2 million yen.
After the opening of the initial section from Ch'ŏrwŏn to Kimhwa, construction of the line proceeded in stages.
Date Section Length 1 August 1924 Chŏrwŏn–Kimhwa 20 December 1925 Kimhwa–Kŭmsŏng 15 September 1926 Kŭmsŏng–Tangam 1 September 1927 Tangam–Changdo 15 April 1929 Changdo–Hyŏlli 25 September 1929 Hyŏlli–Hwagye 15 May 1930 Hwagye–Kŭmganggu (Malhwiri) 1 July 1931 Kŭmganggu–Naegŭmgang
Construction of the Tanpallyŏng Tunnel began on 15 June 1928 and was completed on 15 September 1929.
The Kŭmgangsan Electric Railway's line finally reached Naegŭmgang on 1 July 1931, with trains over the entire length of the route beginning on that day. However, president Kume failed to see the realisation of his dream, having died on 24 May 1931. He was succeeded as president by Kyōhei Magoshi. A station was opened at South Changdo on 1 May 1936.
In addition to 140,000 additional shares being issued in November 1926, a further 240,000 shares of 50 yen per share value were issued in 1932. Besides the railway, the company was also engaged in business as an electric utility, supplying electricity from its power plants to the area. Total income for the first half of 1931 was ¥843,168.2 sen, of which ¥248,760.30 was profit, ¥125,116.19 was carryover, and ¥477,175.12 was government subsidies - and ¥160,000 of the profits went straight to repaying interest on bonds and loans. The depression affected all the private railways in Korea. A number of them ended up being nationalised by the Railway Bureau and absorbed into Sentetsu, and for a time the nationalisation of the Kŭmgangsan Electric Railway was considered, too.
By the mid-1930s, however, the economy turned around, and both passenger and freight transport along the line was booming. Tourists flocked to the railway, taking advantage of the available single and group tours, and in 1936 the line carried approximately 154,000 passengers. The development of industries in the region also played a large part in the company's turnaround, as several quarries were opened along the line, along with iron sulphide (chalcopyrite) mines around Changdo. By 1939, profits just from railway income exceeded expenditures, and Taminosuke Kume's vision seemed to have finally come to fruition.
Flooding was a major problem faced by the railway. Flood damage occurred in 1925, 1929, 1930, 1933, and 1936, and power generation facilities, power transmission facilities, and the railway were damaged on numerous occasions. In 1936, leakage occurred at the main power plant, Chungdae-ri Power Station which hindered the ability to generate power. Senior Managing Director Keijirō Okamoto ordered large-scale renovation work to be done. This was completed in 1937, restoring the power generation capabilities completely.
Plans were drawn up to build a new line from Malhwiri on the mainline to Oegŭmgang on Sentetsu's Donghae Bukbu Line (today called Kŭmgangsan Ch'ŏngnyŏn Station on the Korean State Railway's Kŭmgangsan Ch'ŏngnyŏn Line). However, due to the ruggedness of the eastern side of the mountains, as well as the political situation after the Sino-Japanese War and the outbreak of the Pacific War, these plans were never realised.
Wartime merger and the end of the war (1942 to 1945)
The "glory days" of the late 1930s and the early 1940s made the future of the Kŭmgangsan Electric Railway look bright. However, this was abruptly cut short by the outbreak of the Pacific War.