‘Fortress’ on Wheels: Kim Jong Un’s Bulletproof Train

The Olive Green North Korean train, decorated with a golden stripe, was transferred on Tuesday by leader Kim Jong Un to China for a large military parade, which is also waiting for President Xi Jinping and Russian Vladimir Putin.

Kim, who took energy on sale in 2011, has now made nine international trips and has twice crossed the border to South Korea using its custom, bulletproof train for most of its travel.

AFP looks at what we know about Kim’s preferred mode of transport:

Family affair

In Kim’s family, love for locomotics runs.

His father and predecessor, Kim Jong Il, were known to be afraid of flying, and limited his foreign trips to land to China and Russia by an armored train.

In 2001, an older Kim traveled by train from the North Korean capital of Pyongyang to Moscow, a marathon 20,000 kilometers (12,400 miles) of a return journey, which was on board for about 24 days. He visits the “field leadership” in 2011, when he died of a heart attack.

In Pyongyang, Kim Jong Il and his father, founder of North Korea Kim Il Sung, are now exhibited.

Velvety curtains, national flag

Unlike his father, Kim Jong Un is not afraid of flying – he made several air trips, including China and Singapore, and was once depicted by the state media when checking the aircraft.

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The Korean Central Intelligence Agency Pyongyang published on Tuesday photos of a brilliant kim sitting inside the carriage, apparently on the way to Beijing.

The North Korean leader was depicted sitting at a wooden table with a laptop, an ashtray, a printer, a lamp and several phones, in an area equipped with a national flag and what looked like a blue velvet curtains.

Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui sat beside him and was set in front of it.

Another picture showed that Kim standing in front of the train smokes a cigarette, with Choe and other officials gathered around him.

The train passing through the landscape “contributes to a powerful depiction for the people-symbolic image of a leader who works on board for hours, even late at night,” said Park Min-Ju, Professor of the National Institute for United Education, AFP said.

“It serves practical and political purposes.”

Kim’s past trips

Kim traveled by train for nine nights and 10 days in September 2023 to meet Putin in the Far East.

In April 2019, he also took the train about 1200 kilometers to meet Putin in the Russian town of Vladivostok.

In February that year, Kim spent about 60 hours aboard in Hanoi, Vietnam for his unsuccessful second summit with US President Donald Trump.

Kim had previously visited China four times and traveled on the first trip in March 2018 and again in January 2019.

In May and June 2018, it flows on its private plane, chammae-1, two more trips.

However, this aircraft has not been using this aircraft since 2018 and analysts have questioned its borderability due to their age and maintenance.

Windows bulletproof, reinforced walls

Kims reportedly have several almost identical special trains made from a factory in Pyongyang.

According to analysts, the current edition of Kim has bulletproof windows as well as reinforced walls and floors to protect the explosive.

“It is said that he is able to withstand most artillery shells basically a fortress,” said AFP Lim Eul-chul, professor of Institute for Far Eastern Studies at Kyungnam University in South Korea.

“I believe it is equipped with defensive and offensive abilities to endure virtually any military battle.”

Despite being slower than the aircraft, he claims that the train offers key advantages involving greater flexibility in situations such as non -orticated attacks.

“The train also allows him to bring many AIDS, as well as vehicles, and unlike the aircraft that could be shot down, the moving train is much harder to target,” said Park, the second professor.

Political Stamment

The selection of a train over the plane is also a calculated strategy.

“Traveling by train takes a long time, but it also abandons global attention,” said AFP Koh Yu-Hwan, emeritus professor of North Korean studies at the South University of Dongg.

“Before the main diplomatic events, the world carefully follows its movements and the way of extension helps to keep attention to it,” Koh said.

Kim also used his armored train on the domestic market when he visited the areas affected by floods in the northern province of Pyongan last summer.

Pictures issued by the state media showed that Kim is about to present residents speech from the carriage with a fully open door and turned it into a temporary internship.