Pongdong station is a railway station located in Pongsan County,

North Hwanghae North Hwanghae Province (Hwanghaebuk-to; , lit. "north Yellow Sea province") is a province of North Korea. The province was formed in 1954 when the former Hwanghae Province was split into North and South Hwanghae. The provincial capital is Sari ...

province,

North Korea North Korea, officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the northern half of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and shares borders with China and Russia to the north, at the Yalu River, Y ...

.Kokubu, Hayato, 将軍様の鉄道 (Shōgun-sama no Tetsudō), It is on located on the

P'yŏngbu Line The P'yŏngbu Line is an electrified standard-gauge trunk line of the Korean State Railway running from P'yŏngyang to Kaesŏng in North Korea and further south across the DMZ to Seoul in South Korea; the name comes from the two (theoretical) term ...

, which was formed from part of the Kyŏngŭi Line to accommodate the shift of the capital from

Seoul Seoul (; ; ), officially known as the Seoul Special City, is the capital and largest metropolis of South Korea.Before 1972, Seoul was the ''de jure'' capital of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) as stated iArticle 103 ...

P'yŏngyang Pyongyang (, , ) is the capital and largest city of North Korea, where it is known as the "Capital of the Revolution". Pyongyang is located on the Taedong River about upstream from its mouth on the Yellow Sea. According to the 2008 population ...

; though this line physically connects P'yŏngyang to

Pusan Busan (), officially known as is South Korea's most populous city after Seoul, with a population of over 3.4 million inhabitants. Formerly romanized as Pusan, it is the economic, cultural and educational center of southeastern South Korea, w ...

via Dorasan, in operational reality it ends at

Kaesŏng Kaesong (, ) is a special city in the southern part of North Korea (formerly in North Hwanghae Province), and the capital of Korea during the Taebong kingdom and subsequent Goryeo dynasty. The city is near the Kaesong Industrial Region close t ...

due to the Korean Demilitarized Zone.

History

Although the Kyŏngŭi Line was originally opened on 3 April 1906, the station itself was opened by the Chosen Government Railway for passenger and freight service on 1 July 1923. The station was closed after the

Korean War , date = {{Ubl, 25 June 1950 – 27 July 1953 (''de facto'')({{Age in years, months, weeks and days, month1=6, day1=25, year1=1950, month2=7, day2=27, year2=1953), 25 June 1950 – present (''de jure'')({{Age in years, months, weeks a ...

. The station, as well as the disused section from Kaesŏng across the DMZ to Dorasan, was rebuilt in 2003, and a special train inaugurating the reopened line ran on 17 May 2007. Regular freight service began between Dorasan and the

Kaesŏng Industrial Region The Kaesŏng Industrial Region (KIR) or Kaesŏng Industrial Zone (KIZ) is a special administrative industrial region of North Korea (DPRK). It was formed in 2002 from part of the Kaesŏng Directly-Governed City. On 10 February 2016, it was temp ...

, and although passenger service for South Korean workers exists between Dorasan and the Kaesŏng Industrial Area, apart from the inaugural special train, there has been no passenger service to Sonha station. The freight and passenger services have been interrupted several times as a result of political events between North and South that have caused the closure of the industrial district; it was most recently reopened on 16 September 2013 after a five-month shutdown.

References

Railway stations in North Korea {{NorthKorea-railstation-stub