The glorious leader of North Korea needs a ride to match his prestige.
Kim Jong Un has been photographed stepping off his family’s trademark green armoured train, an aging symbol of his dynastic rule, as he lands in Beijing.
The bulletproof train has been loaded with treats like cigarettes and wine to keep the leader entertained as it crawls towards his destination at a max speed of 37 mph.
The train is called Taeyangho meaning ‘Sun Train’ and has been described as a mobile fortress on rails. The train is protected by bulletproof windows, armour-plated walls and floors, and even anti-aircraft weaponry.
Such is the paranoia of the leader, he travels with an advance security train to check the rail ahead and a support train with bodyguards behind. He also has air cover from military helicopters.
Inside, it offers Kim Jong Un’s lucky guests private bedrooms, offices, conference rooms, leather-appointed seating, wood-panelled décor, and blue‑and‑gold curtains.
On Kim’s desk sat a gold-embossed laptop computer, a bank of telephones, his signature box of cigarettes and bottles with blue or clear liquids.
There is space for Kim’s office, communications equipment, a restaurant and carriages for two armoured Mercedes.
During Tuesday’s trip, Kim can be seen talking with his foreign minister, Choe Son Hui, in one of his train’s luxurious meeting rooms, furnished with yellow-brown desks, leather chairs and curtains with golden knots.
(Credits: Xinhua/Shutterstock)
Another photo showed him smoking a cigarette outside a carriage marked with a golden state seal.
The train was a signature mode of transport for Kim’s famously flight-averse father, Kim Jong Il, who made roughly a dozen trips abroad during his 17-year rule, almost all to China and all by train.
He was traveling by train when he died of a heart attack in 2011, according to North Korean state media.
In a 2002 account, Russian official Konstantin Pulikovsky recounted accompanying Kim Jong ll on a three-week trip to Moscow. The train carried cases of Bordeaux and Beaujolais wine flown in from Paris and passengers could feast on live lobsters and pork barbeque, he said.
Kim Jong Il had several trains equipped with reception halls, conference rooms, high-tech communication equipment and flat-screen televisions.
The train has been at the centre of state propaganda around the ruling Kim family’s embarking on long train journeys to meet ordinary North Koreans across the country.
In 2022, state television showed Kim Jong Un taking what it termed an ‘exhaustive train tour’ around North Korea to inspect corn crops and promote a ‘communist utopia’.
It is an easy propaganda win that apparently shows the leader’s closeness to real people.
In one funny moment on board, Kim Jong-un’s personal media team were forced to jump on board the armoured train after nearly missing it.
The hilarious footage was captured as the train left the station at Komsomolsk-on-Amurand and headed towards Vladivostok after meeting Putin in Russia.
The pair were busy recording a farewell ceremony after the dictator inspected a plane and didn’t realise the train was already on its way.