Railways - History of High-Speed Rail Development in the Seoul Metropolitan Area

When KTX was established, there were three main plans for the high-speed rail construction in the Seoul area: 1. Undergrounding all the way to Seoul Station. 2. Building a new station in the Seoul Gangnam area and undergrounding. 3. Building the high-speed line up to the outskirts of Seoul and utilizing existing lines within the city. Plans 1 and 2 required undergrounding due to the urban areas, but due to the financial difficulties of the IMF crisis during the construction period, the costly undergrounding was abandoned. Instead, Plan 3, which involved building the high-speed line only to the outskirts of Seoul (Gwangmyeong Station), was finalized. Furthermore, Gwangmyeong Station was planned to handle a significant portion of the terminal services, and it was built large and grand enough to be called 'Gwangmyeong Airport.' However, due to public complaints about inconvenience because it wasn't in downtown Seoul, the plan was changed to concentrate terminal services at the current Seoul and Yongsan stations. The saturation of Seoul's rail capacity became an added issue. However, the initial plans weren't entirely discarded. To alleviate the rail capacity issues, Plan 2 was revived as the Suseo-Pyeongtaek High-Speed Line, departing from the current Suseo Station. Plan 1 was revived recently as the Susek-Gwangmyeong High-Speed Line, and construction was confirmed to begin this August, with an expected opening in 2036.