South Korea on Thursday unveiled a next-generation bullet train with a maximum speed of 430 km/h, the HEMU 430X. The HEMU on a test run covered a 28.2 km distance at a speed of 150 km/h from a station in Changwon, South Gyeongsang Province. The faster and bigger successor to the KTX-Sancheon is Korea’s second bullet train developed with local technologies and its production has been carried out in the city by Hyundai Rotem, the train maker.
HEMU stands for Highspeed Electric Multiple Unit, but the acronym also means “auspicious sea fog” in Korean. The HEMU 430X is the fourth fastest high-speed train in the world, after France (575 km/h), China (486 km/h) and Japan (443 km/h). It can travel from Seoul to Busan in 90 minutes.
The advanced next-generation bullet train increases space for passengers by 16 percent compared to existing KTX trains and enhances the train’s performance overall. As a result, the HEMU can carry up to 456 passengers at a speed of 370 kilometers an hour, which is 70 kilometers per hour faster than its predecessor, the KTX, which carries 363 people.
