Inside Kim Jong Un's personal train - which is bulletproof, has all-white conference rooms, and its own red carpet ramp
The train's arrival in Beijing on Monday disrupted the entire region's railway schedule. When Kim Jong Il travelled on the train, power to other lines would be shut down so nobody could get in his way.
The train has an average speed of just 37mph — likely because every carriage is bulletproof, making it much heavier than a regular train.
Source: The Chosun Ilbo, The New York Times
It also has a red-carpeted ramp on which the supreme leader can board the train. It's not clear whether Kim Jong Un used it in this trip to China.
Inside one of the carriages are pink leather chairs with small wooden tables in between. Here's Kim, his wife Ri Sol Ju, and other officials sitting on them.
This carriage looks long enough to fit at least 20 people.
The elder Kim also had a flat-screen TV, wooden desk and a computer at the end of one of his carriages. The desk and computer are now being preserved at Kim's mausoleum in Pyongyang. It's not clear where the TV is.
Source: The New York Times
Kim Jong Un also conducts official business on the train. This still from a 2015 video shows Kim Jong Un speaking to officials in an all-white conference room during a domestic trip.
Unlike his father, however, Kim seems to prefer using Apple MacBooks to desktop computers.
Kim Jong Un is known to be an Apple fan.
The elder Kim used to travel in opulence — he stocked his train with Bordeaux and Burgundy red wines, silver chopsticks, and whatever else he fancied from around the world. This is according to Konstantin Pulikovsky, a Russian official who travelled with the late North Korean leader in the early 2000s — when the rest of North Korea was reliant on humanitarian aid after years of famine.
Source: The New York Times
"It was possible to order any dish of Russian, Chinese, Korean, Japanese, and French cuisine" on board, Pulikovsky said. This undated video shows a section of the train's dining carriage under Kim Jong Il's reign, which has reportedly since been renovated.
Source: The New York Times
It's not clear whether Kim Jong Un stocks the train as opulently as his father did. But he's not known to be one to skimp — he reportedly enjoys Swiss cheese, Cristal Champagne and Hennessy cognac.
Source: The New York Times
Popular Right Now
Popular Keywords
Advertisement