[Square] The Railroad Called Again by the "Call of the Battlefield"

Park Kwang-yeol, Head of Passenger Business Division, Korea Railroad Corporation. Photo by Korea Railroad Corporation

The last war in which railroads became a core element of tactics was the Korean War. The role of railroads in the Korean War was significant. While the front lines moved back and forth between the North and South, railroads not only transported countless refugees, saving precious lives, but also contributed to defending the country by moving troops and supplies.

Amid this, the heroism of railroad personnel also shone brightly. Representative figures include engineer Kim Jae-hyun, who died in the rescue operation of Major General William F. Dean, commander of the U.S. 24th Infantry Division, and station staff member Yeo Un-hong of Boseong Station, who saved thousands of refugees.

However, after the Korean War, in modern warfare dominated by localized and small-scale conflicts, the role of "railroad transport capacity" diminished. This was due to the change in the nature of war into limited wars aimed at eliminating specific facilities and targets, and proxy wars supporting multinational forces. The emergence of weapons of mass destruction such as nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons, which began to deter wars, also contributed to the reduced role of railroads in warfare.

Ironically, unlike the past when sporadic military clashes became the norm of war, humanity now faces an unexpected crisis. Starting from Wuhan, Hubei Province, China, at the end of 2019, COVID-19 spread worldwide.

The World Health Organization (WHO) declared a global pandemic just three months after the outbreak of COVID-19, and currently, the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases worldwide has reached 150 million, with deaths exceeding 3 million.

These figures are comparable to the combined death toll of North and South Korea during the Korean War plus the deaths in the Vietnam War over the past 15 years. The global hope to control COVID-19 through regional lockdowns and swift localized warfare has collapsed in an instant.

Countries around the world are currently mobilizing national resources in a wartime-like posture to fight COVID-19, including border closures, movement restrictions, and the supply of daily necessities and medicines. Recently, many countries have again focused on the transport capacity and public nature of railroad infrastructure amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Railroads are once again standing at the forefront of the battle line.

In fact, despite a global decline in ridership and a revenue drop of about 1,400 trillion won last year, European railway agencies invested astronomical funds in time and manpower for quarantine efforts, assisting emergency patient transport and resolving shortages of quarantine supplies through emergency hospital trains and freight trains.

Notably, during the process of sharing COVID-19 response strategies and building a joint defense line, international railway organizations such as the International Union of Railways (UIC) have taken Korean Railways' response cases as exemplary models.

First, Korean Railways attracted attention with proactive quarantine activities, including disinfecting stations twice daily and disinfecting KTX passenger cars at least four times. Especially when regional infections spread uncontrollably centered on religious groups in Daegu, Korean Railways supported nationwide medical volunteers to use trains free of charge, leading to the nickname "medical volunteer trains." From February last year to April this year, approximately 14,600 volunteers were deployed on these medical volunteer trains to the front lines of the infectious disease battle.

Additionally, Korean Railways operated dedicated KTX cars for overseas arrivals to safely travel to their homes or destinations without contact with others for self-quarantine. The total number of people who used these dedicated cars for overseas arrivals has been confirmed to be about 165,800.

Despite the ongoing spread of COVID-19, the fortunate aspect is that humanity is now preparing to counter infectious diseases with vaccines and treatments as weapons.

At this time, Korean Railways pledges to uphold the spirit of "First In, Last Out," maintaining vigilance until COVID-19 is eradicated. We promise to do our best in what railroads can do to restore the "ordinary daily life" that we all desperately wish for.

Park Kwang-yeol, Head of Passenger Business Division, Korean Railways

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.