Inside Kim Jong Un's luxurious -- and slow -- armored train

[mahatmakanejeeves]

This is probably not the right forum for this. Any thoughts?

Inside Kim Jong Un’s luxurious — and slow — armored train

By Adam Taylor
Updated September 12, 2023 at 1:10 p.m. EDT | Published September 11, 2023 at 4:49 a.m. EDT



A train carrying North Korean leader Kim Jong Un arrives for a meeting with President Vladimir Putin in Vladivostok, Russia, in 2019. (Alexander Khitrov/AP)

For his first known trip outside North Korea in almost four years, Kim Jong Un has probably returned to a favored mode of transport: a luxuriously decorated, heavily armored and exceptionally slow-moving train.

South Korean media reported Monday, citing government officials, that Kim’s train appeared to have left the North Korean capital, Pyongyang, to start its long journey. Russian state media later confirmed that Kim would meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Russia in the “coming days.”

The train’s final destination remains unclear, amid speculation about potential meetings at the port city of Vladivostok or the Vostochny Cosmodrome, Russia’s spaceport — both in the country’s far east, hundreds of miles from the North Korean border.

Kim has rarely traveled outside North Korea since assuming the leadership of the country after the death of his father Kim Jong Il in 2011, and North Korea largely cut itself off from the wider world during the coronavirus pandemic. Memorably, when Russian diplomats finally left locked-down North Korea in 2021, they used a railroad cart to cross the border.

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North Korean security officers wait near the train at a station in Vladivostok in 2019. (Alexander Safronov/Press Office of the Primorye Territory Administration/AP)

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By Adam Taylor
Adam Taylor writes about foreign affairs for The Washington Post. Originally from London, he studied at the University of Manchester and Columbia University. Twitter https://twitter.com/mradamtaylor

[wryter2000]

1. OT

I would dearly love to travel on a luxurious train. I have gone from Oakland to Denver on Amtrak and loved it, but something with a real bed and luxurious appointments would be my dream way of traveling.

[SheilaAnn]

2. I'm so with you, that would be my dream vacation, cross country. I live in Florida and probably

would have to go to NY to catch that Amtrak...sigh.