Guards polish North Korean train for Kim Jong Un at Vladivostok station

[Yavianice]

Kim Jong Un at Pyongyang train station, heading to his train

 

 

Kim Jong Un arrives at the border station Khasan in Russia. Regauging facilities are in North Korea, so the RZD loco pulled it across. At the border he visited the Korean-Russian friendship house

 

https://www.reuters.com/video/2019/04/24/kim-jong-un-welcomed-at-russias-border?videoId=541780556&newsChannel=worldNews

 

Kim Jong Un went to Vladivostok to meet Putin for diplomatic talks. As usual he went there by train. Aides seen polishing the car while it arrives. Note the distance between the car and the platform because North Korea uses normal gauge (1435mm)

 

 

Russian Propaganda TV (French edition) reporting on how he exits the train

 

 

Apparently the train overshot the red carpet by a meter and had to be backed up by about a meter.

 

 

His car entourage in Vladivostok (I think?) note the absence of guards running besides his car.

 

 

Edited April 24, 2019 by Yavianice

[Pashina12]

This is intriguing - those carriages look (externally anyways) like standard DPRK passenger stock - not like Kim Jong-il's special train, which was more distinctive from the standard stock...

[Kiha66]

They do look a lot closer to the older YZ22 series, rather than the newer YZ25 series his cars seem to be based on.

[ben_issacs]

Folks, 

These coaches, apart from car numbers, don't appear to have any form of classification markings, and would the North Koreans use the Chinese carriage classification system, anyway?

If they are North Korean stock, they would have had to be bogie exchanged from standard to Russian gauge to get to Vladivostok.

No problems there, of course.

Regards, 

Bill, 

Melbourne.

 

[Pashina12]

2 hours ago, ben_issacs said:

Folks, 

These coaches, apart from car numbers, don't appear to have any form of classification markings, and would the North Koreans use the Chinese carriage classification system, anyway?

If they are North Korean stock, they would have had to be bogie exchanged from standard to Russian gauge to get to Vladivostok.

No problems there, of course.

Regards, 

Bill, 

Melbourne.

 

 

Most cars (in general) do have classification markers and car numbers by the doors, and all have them on the car ends (you can glimpse at them in the second video around 1:25-ish.

The classification system is completely different from the Chinese one; it's very similar to what was used by the Chosen Government Railway during the period of Japanese rule, and so by extension kinda similar to the JNR system.

 

I don't have full details of course, but from my observations I know "Na" (나) are coaches (좌석차, "sitting car"), "Su" (수) are baggage cars (수하물차), "Chim" (침) are 1st class sleepers (침대차), "DaChim" (다침) are 2nd class sleepers (일반침대), "Ryok" (력) are power cars (동력차; these have a pantograph up top but their specific purpose is unclear)... there are others too that I don't recall, I have a bunch of stuff on an external HD whose power supply died...

 

The freight classification system is also very similar to the CGR/South Manchuria Railway system.

[Yavianice]

6 hours ago, ben_issacs said:

If they are North Korean stock, they would have had to be bogie exchanged from standard to Russian gauge to get to Vladivostok.

It isn't Russian stock, you can see it from the distance of the train to the platform. Kim has 3 trains, usually, 1 main one, and two backup/guard trains. If I were to make a guess, one train was waiting at Tumangang with russian bogies, while the other picked up Kim in Pyongyang, drove to Tumangang, and then he changed trains, and while he was in Khasan signing the guest book, the other train got regauged.

 

Just a guess. Couldn't find a video of multiple trains like I could for his China/Vietnam trip.

[Socimi]

4 hours ago, Pashina12 said:

 

MRyok" (력) are power cars (동력차; these have a pantograph up top but their specific purpose is unclear)...

 

They could be generator cars for heating and lighting, used on passenger trains hauled by freight locomotives (wich are not designed to provide heating or electricity to the cars).

 

Usually these would run on diesel or gasoline, but since North Korea is having a decade-long fuel shortage, these might have been converted to electricity.

 

Here is one example:

http://imagizer-cv.imageshack.us/v2/1024x768q90/689/9ecm.jpg

from

http://www.forum.ferrovie.it/viewtopic.php?t=35346

 

These are ex-BLS cars bought second-hand from switzerland in 1997, and one has been converted to work as a generator car, with two pantographs that probably were spare parts from one of their "Red Flag"-class locomotives.

 

On a side note, swiss railways are famous for putting pantographs on resturant cars, so that they are able to operate even when not attached to a locomotive or to a generator car.

 

 

[Yavianice]

Never seen it before. So weird to see BLS cars in North Korea...

[Pashina12]

As far as purpose goes, that's as good a theory as any.

 

But they've been around since the 90s if not before...

[Sheffie]

I wonder how long it takes for a train to get a new set of wheels. Just the other day I was watching formula one pit crews changing wheels in Azerbaijan and the vehicle was stopped for a little over 2 seconds. Probably the process here is a bit more involved but it’s nice to imagine a North Korean pit crew going to work 

Edited May 1, 2019 by Sheffie

[Pashina12]

3 minutes ago, Sheffie said:

I wonder how long it takes for a train to get a new set of wheels. Just the other day I was watching formula one pit crews changing wheels in Azerbaijan and the vehicle was stopped for a little over 2 seconds. Probably the process here is a bit more involved but it’s nice to imagine a North Korean pit crew going to work 

 

The station at Tumangang on the NK side of the border has regauging facilities. Some trucks are regaugable just by running them through a special contraption.

[ben_issacs]

Folks, 

Gauge changing can be an interesting exercise.

One way is to swop the bogies, but this it seems involves one car at a time , so a slow process.

Changing the gauge of individual wheel sets whilst they are still in the bogies is the more modern technology and is much quicker.

Or, as suggested, two separate trains on either side of the border.

Kim was using a very swish Mercedes limo. in Vladivostok, this would probably have travelled in his Korean train,and so transferred to a Russian van, along with other support vehicles. 

Thanks to pashina 12 for his info. on Korean carriage classifications, very useful.

Regards, 

Bill, 

Melbourne.