The Wolmi Sea Train (월미바다열차), formerly known as Wolmi Galaxy Rail, is a

monorail A monorail (from "mono", meaning "one", and "rail") is a railway in which the track consists of a single rail or a beam. Colloquially, the term "monorail" is often used to describe any form of elevated rail or people mover. More accurately, ...

on the island of

Wolmido Wolmido (월미도), also known as Wŏlmi-do, is an island off the coast of South Korea near Incheon. It was connected to the mainland by a highway in 1989, and was later connected by a monorail which opened in late 2019. It is a weekend desti ...

Incheon Incheon (; ; or Inch'ŏn; literally "kind river"), formerly Jemulpo or Chemulp'o (제물포) until the period after 1910, officially the Incheon Metropolitan City (인천광역시, 仁川廣域市), is a city located in northwestern South Kore ...

South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and sharing a Korean Demilitarized Zone, land border with North Korea. Its western border is formed ...

. The monorail line has 4 stations and covers 6.1 km connecting Wolmido Island to Incheon Station, the west terminus of

Seoul Subway Line 1 Seoul Metropolitan Subway Line 1 of the Seoul Metropolitan Subway is a rapid transit and commuter rail line which links central Seoul, South Korea to Soyosan Station in the northeast, Incheon in the southwest, and Sinchang (Soonchunhyang Univ.) ...

and the

Suin Line The Suin Line (Suwon-Incheon) was a metro line of the Seoul Metropolitan Subway serving the Seoul Capital Area. The original route, abandoned in 1995, was one of the few narrow-gauge railways in South Korea. Opened by the privately owned Chosen ...

. 1.15 km is double-tracked, but the loop around Wolmido (3.94 km) is single-track. Phase 2, if built, would have added 2 km single track connecting to Dong-Incheon station, also on Metro Line 1, with a potential Phase 3 looping back to Incheon station. The system is the first in the world to use Urbanaut technology, whose selling point is an inverse T-shaped track: large wheels run on the horizontal part of the track, while small wheels press against the rail and keep it in place. The project was started in 2007, where it was originally designed to be a major monorail carrying 70 passengers. The line was scheduled to open in March 2010, but opening has been repeatedly postponed. The project has a poor safety record. In April 2010, a test vehicle collided with a rail inspection vehicle, causing it to crash into a station, parts of which collapsed onto the street below. In August 2010, a wheel falling from the vehicle on a test run injured a pedestrian. In May 2012, a

current collector Electric current collectors are used by trolleybuses, trams, electric locomotives or EMUs to carry electrical power from overhead lines, electrical third rails, or ground-level power supplies to the electrical equipment of the vehicles. Those for ...

fell off the train, although there were no injuries. In 2011, ''

Joongang Daily ''Korea JoongAng Daily'' is the English edition of the South Korean national daily newspaper ''JoongAng Ilbo''. The newspaper was first published on October 17, 2000, originally named as ''JoongAng Ilbo English Edition''. It mainly carries news a ...

'' reported that construction had been indefinitely suspended due to "colossal corruption", and that what had been built was set to be demolished due to "safety issues". It was reported the system was not built to the specifications of the Urbanaut. A technical inspection in May 2013 revealed numerous unresolved safety issues. In August 2014, it was announced that the monorail was unsafe and the project would be abandoned. The cost of the entire system, originally estimated at US$60 million, had risen to 110 billion

Korean won The Korean won ( ko, 원 (圓), ) or Korean Empire won (Korean: 대한제국 원), was the official currency of the Korean Empire between 1902 and 1910. It was subdivided into 100 ''jeon'' (; ko, 전 (錢), ). Etymology Won is a c ...

(approx.

US$ The United States dollar (symbol: $; code: USD; also abbreviated US$ or U.S. Dollar, to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies; referred to as the dollar, U.S. dollar, American dollar, or colloquially buck) is the official ...

100 million) before construction was suspended. A revised plan in 2015 cut the size of the trains to carrying 24 passengers. Construction based on the revised plan began in February 2015 aimed to complete in Fall 2016. It was eventually opened on October 8, 2019.

List of stations

References

See also