In 2002, South Korean president Kim Dae-jung opened Dorasan railway station on the Korean peninsular’s 38th parallel, which marks the country’s border with North Korea. It was a key milestone in the ‘sunshine policy’, which won Kim a Nobel Peace Prize. On the platform, a map demonstrates that, if made functional, this section of the Gyeongui Line would connect the South to the Eurasian rail network and beyond, making it possible – technically – to travel by train from Seoul to London.
The violent severance of one Korea into two in 1948 is a wound unhealed. Today the tracks remain eerily quiet, and
