The Korean Landscape, and the KTX

During Chuseok, I rode the KTX train from Busan to Seoul.

KTX stands for "Korea Train eXpress".  It is a high speed train that services a number of Korean cities.  It covers the distance between Busan and Seoul, approximately 410 kilometers, in a little less than 3 hours.  It takes the train about one hour to run from Busan to Daegu, a distance of about 115 km.  The 295 kilometers between Daegu and Seoul are covered in less than 2 hours.  Between these latter cities, the train can attain speeds of approximately 300 km/h.  Pretty impressive, I think.

Taking the KTX from Busan to Seoul is great fun!  The train rolls very smoothly, so smoothly that you hardly realize that it is travelling at speeds in the area of 300 km/h.  The only indications that this is happening are an occasional faint whistling noise, probably the result of the air displaced by the speeding train, and the speedometer reading displayed on the LCD monitors attached to the roof of the passenger cars.  Plus, taking the KTX is an inexpensive and uncomplicated affair.  I had purchased my KTX tickets early, as I was warned by my colleagues that Chuseok is a busy travel period.  But normally, I believe that it is possible to simply go to the train station and buy a ticket for the next departing KTX train.  Boarding begins approximately 20 minutes before a scheduled departure.  However, just minutes before the train leaves, people are still boarding.  At the scheduled departure time, the passenger car doors are closed, and the train leaves.  It's that simple...  No line-ups, and no pointless "security"-related delays.

On the way to Seoul, I saw for the first time the Korean countryside.  I found it beautiful!

Korea is a mountainous country.  My significant other, an Edmonton native who compares all mountains to the Canadian Rockies, would certainly use the term "dwarf mountains" to describe them.  But I am from Ontario, a province not known for large mountains, and I find Korea's mountains impressive.  In the valleys, it seems that every square inch of land is either inhabited or cultivated.  Between the cities and the villages are located farms of various types.  I believe that I saw cows in a few of the fields, but most are used for vegetable cultivation.  Some fields bear fruit crops, sometimes sheltered under plastic tarps.  Others bear vegetable crops,  sometimes sheltered in small greenhouses.  I think the purpose of the tarps and greenhouses is to shelter the crops from the winds and heavy rains that come during typhoon season. 

Agricultural and / or industrial installations along the KTX route.

Farms and mountains along the KTX route.

More farms and mountains along the KTX route.

For a short while, the KTX runs along a road.

Mountains and greenhouses along the KTX route.

The KTX passes through a tunnel.

Still more farms and mountains along the KTX route.

A village by the KTX tracks.

Passing another KTX train heading in the opposite direction.

Apartment buildings along the KTX route, possibly in Daegu.

In closing this post, I feel the need to express an opinion that will not be very popular, I fear, with my Canadian friends.

Having travelled on the Korean KTX, I honestly believe that it is a national embarrassment for Canada that no similar high speed train system has yet been built in that country.  It is true that Canada is a much larger country than Korea, and a Canadian high speed train would have to cover distances that are much greater than those covered by the KTX.  However, a large portion of the Canadian population lives in the Québec-Windsor corridor, and it would make a lot of sense, in my (not-so-) humble opinion, to build a high speed train in this area of the country.  The major cities in this area of Canada are separated by distances that are comparable to that separating Busan from Seoul.  For instance, Canada's largest city, Toronto, is separated from Canada's capital, Ottawa, by a distance of approximately 450 km.  Canada's second largest city, Montréal, is approximately 160 km away from Ottawa, almost directly to the east.  A high speed train system capable of reaching speeds in the area of 300 km/h could reduce the overland travel time between Ottawa and Toronto from approximately 5 hours to approximately 2 hours.  A similar link between Ottawa and Montréal would reduce the travel time between these cities from 2 hours to about 40 minutes.  This could make plane travel between these cities virtually pointless.  Furthermore, I am convinced that the expense of building a high speed train in the Québec-Windsor corridor would be far less than the cost of the KTX.  Because Korea is so mountainous, a large number of tunnels had to be built for the KTX.  I estimate that there are approximately 50 tunnels on the KTX line between Seoul and Busan, and though many of these tunnels are only a few hundred meters long, others are 1-2 kilometers in length.  In contrast, a large part of the Québec-Windsor corridor is located in the Saint-Lawrence lowlands, a gently sloping, essentially flat geological formation.  Construction of a high speed train in this terrain would be a leisurely promenade in the park in comparison to the construction of the KTX in Korea.

Sadly, if the construction of a Canadian high speed train system is undertaken in a political climate similar to that in which the city of Ottawa has recently attempted to expand its inner-city light rail transit system, the following fictional (and cynical) scenario can plausibly occur....   After years of debate and negotiation, the municipal governments of the cities of Montréal, Ottawa, Kingston, Toronto, London, and Windsor agree to form a consortium for the development of a high speed train system linking their cities.  The consortium is formed, and a route is selected for the tracks.  Following this, private sector players are invited to bid on the train construction contract.  Bombardier and Siemens both tender bids, and Bombardier is selected to build the train.  The consortium signs a contract with Bombardier, and construction is scheduled to begin on the London-Windsor link first.  The consortium elects to build this link first as it traverses a less-populated area of the selected train route, and thus can be completed with fewer expropriations and using simpler construction techniques.  Before the London-Windsor link is even started, elections occur in Ottawa.  During these elections, the high speed train project becomes a hot-button issue.  One mayoral candidate, Mr. Barry O'Lion, promises to initiate an overview of the project if he is elected mayor.  Mr. O'Lion is indeed elected.  After assuming his post, he begins arguing with his train consortium colleagues that the Toronto-Ottawa link of the high speed train should be built first, as this will be the most profitable link of the train.  Since the other members of the consortium insist on building the London-Windsor link first, Mr. O'Lion withdraws the city of Ottawa from the train consortium.  In doing so, he has the full support of the Ottawa electorate.  As a result, the consortium falls apart and the entire high speed train project is cancelled.  In light of this, Bombardier sues all members of the consortium for breach of contract.  The court awards Bombardier 40% of the original contract price.  In the end, Bombardier is paid a huge sum of money for essentially doing nothing more than a cost estimation.  This sum, in the hundreds of millions of dollars, is paid out by the taxpayers of the cities involved in the consortium.  No high speed train is built in Canada.  In the mean time, the KTX in Korea is improved and expanded.  The time to travel between Seoul and Busan is reduced to less than 2 hours by a new Busan-Daegu link and the introduction of trains capable of reaching 420 km/h.  Also, the KTX system is extended to 7 more Korean cities.

Yup...  I'm pretty cynical about Canadian politics these days.