[2] The official division of Korea into Soviet and American zones of occupation along the 38th parallel in August 1945[3] disrupted train service on the (former) Kyŏngwŏn and Kyŏngŭi Lines.

The railways were nearly paralysed by a lack of experienced staff as a result of the expulsion of ethnic Japanese - most railway workers, especially the skilled labourers, the locomotive crews, mechanics, engineers, and administrators, were Japanese;[2] to make the situation worse, the Soviet Army plundered a great deal of industrial equipment from northern Korea - factory machines, components for hydroelectric dams, and a large number of locomotives and rolling stock.

[6] At the same time, war aid in the form of locomotives and freight cars arrived from friendly socialist countries such as the USSR, China, Poland, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia.

[15] American-led United Nations forces quickly turned the tide of the war, however; by 19 October of the same year had captured P'yŏngyang,[16] and a week later, South Korean troops reached the Yalu River.

[15] Reconstruction, however, started already before the end of the war and, with the aid of the Chinese People's Volunteer Corps, by the time the ceasefire was signed 1,382 km (859 mi) of railway lines had been restored.

Although the USSR did not militarily intervene in the Korean War due to fear of criticism from the United Nations (UN), it played a major and active role in post-war reconstruction.

A replacement railway bridge was opened over the Taedong River in P'yŏngyang on 17 June 1954, and three months later, on 25 September 1954 the Kangwŏn Line was reopened between Kosan and P'yŏnggang.

[22] North Korea had inherited a fairly extensive network of 762 mm (30.0 in) narrow-gauge rail lines from both Sentetsu and formerly privately owned railways.

Made in the USSR to meet a Hungarian requirement,[38] the first two prototypes of the M62-type locomotives appeared on Soviet Railways in 1964[39] before series production and deliveries to Hungary began in 1965;[40] by the time Kukch'ŏl received their first deliveries of the type - designated K62-class by the factory[41] - in 1967, the M62 had become the backbone of diesel power all over the Comecon world: in addition to Hungary, in 1965 and 1966 the type was put in service in large numbers in Poland, Czechoslovakia, and East Germany.

After the success of the P'yŏngyang trolleybus system opened in 1962,[54] trolleybus services were inaugurated in Ch'ŏngjin (1970), Hamhŭng (1973), Sinŭiju (1978), and Kowŏn (1979),[31] Nampo (1982), P'yŏngsŏng (1983), Haeju (1986), Anju (1987),[55] and others, along with the opening of the P'yŏngyang Metro in 1973; though most of the trolleybusses were built in North Korea to Czechoslovak and Soviet designs, the metro - despite claims of being entirely of domestic production - used mostly equipment supplied from China.

However, the opening of the P'yŏngyang Metro, along with worldwide attention on high-speed electric trainsets such as the Japanese Bullet Train put into service in 1964 and the ER200 class introduced by the Soviet Railways in 1974, led the Railway Ministry to direct efforts towards the development of a high-speed train for North Korea, resulting in the unveiling of North Korea's first electric trainset, the Juche-class EMU, in 1976.

[31] Externally, the four-car set was similar in appearance to the 181 series trainsets used by the Japanese National Railways on the Kodama limited express of the day; internally, despite all of North Korea's electrification being 3000V direct current, the Juche-class EMU was built for two-system operation - possibly with a view to future operation in South Korea, where AC electrification was used.

The set remained in storage until 1998, when it was refurbished, repainted, and put into use on a daily commuter service for scientists between P'yŏngyang and Paesanjŏm, taking one hour to cover the 38 km (24 mi) distance each way.

A particular problem was the lack of sufficient tractive power on heavy freight trains on mountainous lines, and to address this, an 8-axle articulated locomotive was designed.

This, together with the loss of aid money from former allies after the collapse of Communism in eastern Europe and the dissolution of the USSR,[73] as well as major flooding and other natural disasters, led to a period of economic crisis known as the Arduous March;[74] the attempt to overcome this through the introduction of the Sŏngun policy only served to exacerbate the situation.

Although a small number of newly built diesel locomotives were imported from Russia in the first half of the decade,[76] the situation had become so dire that in 1998 Kim Yong-sam, who had replaced Pak Yŏng-sŏk as Minister of Railways in September of that year, announced that due to the critical state of electricity generation in the country, electricity could not be guaranteed for the operation of trains, and consequently the use of steam locomotives would be reinstated on some lines.

[71] Despite having reached the end of their service lives years before, Kukch'ŏl was nevertheless forced to rely once again on Japanese-built steam locomotives built before the Liberation of Korea.

[71] However, political reasons made it impossible to admit that the country, which only twenty years earlier had been self-sufficient in the production of rolling stock, was unable to supply much-needed new locomotives.

[79] But in the shadow of such lofty visions, North Korea's railways remained in critical condition; to counter this, the government announced the "7.1 Economic Management Improvement Measures" on 1 July 2002, under which a number of reforms like those China had implemented in the 1980s were introduced, such as giving companies more independence, the establishment of joint ventures with foreign investors (mostly Chinese, but also some South Korean), bringing foreign exchange rates closer to reality,[80] increasing wages, etc.

This service, operated by Korail, has been interrupted several times as a result of political events between North and South that have caused the closure of the industrial district.

[88] In 2008, an inspection of the railways was carried out by the National Defence Commission, revealing massive corruption, as a result of which Kim Yong-sam was removed from the position and handed over to the State Security Department.

[90] Also in 2008, work began on the reconstruction of the line between Tumangang Station on the DPRK-Russian border and the port of Rajin, where construction was planned for a new container terminal to handle freight traffic from Asia Pacific countries to Europe,[91] which would cut down considerably on transit time when compared to shipping by sea.

A single control centre will manage future operations on the line, which will be capable of handling up to 4 million tonnes of cargo per year from the port.

On 8 December 2013, an agreement was reached between North Korea and a consortium of Chinese companies to construct a high-speed railway connecting Kaesŏng, P'yŏngyang, and Sinŭiju.

[27][page needed] These trains, by far the most important international passenger service in the DPRK, operate via Sinŭiju four times weekly (Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday).

Much, mostly steam and Japanese-made electric locomotives, was left over after the end of the colonial era, and this motive power moved the majority of trains between the time of the partition of Korea and the beginning of the Korean War.

During the Ch'ŏllima Movement, North Korea's equivalent to China's Great Leap Forward,[111] Kim Il Sung placed a special emphasis on the electrification of the railways.

[27][page needed] At the same time, however, the economic crisis also made it difficult to obtain diesel fuel, and by the late 1990s rail traffic was barely plodding along.

At the present time the Korean State Railway operates primarily using electric and diesel power, with a wide array of locomotive types.

[27][page needed] Following Kim Jong Un's instruction to improve the image of the DPRK's railways,[117] Kukch'ŏl's uniformly green passenger cars are being repainted into more colourful schemes.