South Korea will begin developing a new express train with the maximum speed of
500 kilometers per hour, developers said Wednesday.
The Korea
Institute of Construction & Transportation Technology Evaluation and
Planning said it will invest nearly 400 billion won (US$375 million) this year
in 10 research and development projects that include the development of key
technologies for the new bullet train.
The train, tentatively named
the HEMU-500X, will be a newer, faster version of HEMU-430X, which was unveiled
last year and is currently undergoing test runs for the start of passenger
operations in 2016 or 2017.