North Korea: Various expressions in the deepest subway car, foreign tourists are in a separate car

When traveling in North Korea, in addition to the three major benefits we are familiar with: free housing, education, and medical care, if the tour guide is forced to find a new sense of pride, the Pyongyang Metro will do its part.

The Pyongyang subway is very deep, averaging about 25 to 100 meters below the ground, and even reaching 200 meters in some places. It is known as the deepest subway in the world. The reason why it is dug like this is because it also serves as an air raid shelter.

Chinese tourists who come to Pyongyang will be taken to the Pyongyang Subway to experience the greatness, but they can only take one stop from Fuxing Station to Rongguang Station. What is more interesting is that the trains at this station are The carriages are also specially prepared for foreign tourists and are isolated from the ordinary carriages for locals. This mode of operation is similar to not allowing foreigners to take local buses. It is probably to avoid contact and chatting. However, it is said that during rush hours, local passengers will come to the tour car.

The Pyongyang subway is basically a manual operation mode. The first is ticket sales and queuing at the manual window. However, we found that there were not many people queuing. The tour guide explained that it was because everyone used monthly tickets, which were cheap. Many monthly passes are also benefits of the unit and are distributed uniformly.

Passing through the manual ticket gate, you are greeted by a long escalator. This journey lasted nearly two minutes. The passengers around you did not speak and stood quietly. In the passage, there are speakers at intervals, and Korean songs are floating in the space, giving it a strange smell.

The Pyongyang subway platform is absolutely tall, surrounded by marble to the top, with a strong Soviet style. At first glance, it looks like a Moscow subway station.

The Pyongyang Metro has 17 stations with a total length of 34 kilometers. It was opened in 1973. According to the tour guide’s explanation, all design and construction are the wisdom of North Korean working people and are self-reliant. But after we returned to China, we gradually realized that the Pyongyang subway embodies the wisdom and sweat of the Chinese people. When it was opened to traffic in the 1970s, it used DK4 locomotives from the Changchun Bus Factory. Four of them were purchased from China at that time. The quality of the locomotives is very good. In 1999, all four locomotives were returned to China and were used on Beijing Line 13.

Now when we come to the Pyongyang subway, the red and green locomotives we see are D-type locomotives produced in Germany, which North Korea replaced intensively around 2000. The biggest problem with this kind of car is the manual door. The platform attendant follows the passengers and can close and open the door at any time. Our compartment was separated into separate compartments, and there were no stewards. The tour guide directly acted as the door opener.

The North Korean subway ticket is equivalent to about 3 cents in RMB. It is very cheap and can be used to the end of the ride. Since there are no private cars, the Pyongyang subway has been integrated into the lives of North Koreans, especially girls, who like to take the subway the most. This is because due to the depth of the subway, the temperature remains around 20 degrees all year round, which is warm in winter and cool in summer.

Although we can’t enter the locals’ carriages, we can see through the windows that the lights inside the carriages are not bright and the passengers are sitting quietly. There are no people chatting loudly or talking. On the phone, many people were holding a book and reading very seriously.

While riding the subway, we also discovered an interesting thing: the flight attendants on the platform were all young girls, while the locomotive drivers were all older men. The girl is pretty, but the eldest brother is short and thin.

When we greeted the girls, they obviously understood Mandarin, but just smiled or ignored you at all. However, they were very enthusiastic about the driver who came down during the parking interval and took the initiative to chat.

The tour guide told us that because there are too many Chinese tourists visiting the subway, everyone likes to say hello, so these girls are overwhelmed. Subway drivers are scarce resources, with high wages and good benefits. They are the targets of many girls.