Hyundai Rotem rolls out Korea’s fastest bullet train

Hyundai Rotem Co., a South Korean railway system maker under Hyundai Motor Group, has rolled out the country’s fastest bullet train that can run at a maximum speed of 320 kilometers (199 miles) an hour.

Following a test run, the new train dubbed EMU-320 will be put into operation on the Gyeongbu High Speed Railway and Honam High Speed Railway lines alongside the current bullet train's two models – KTX-I and KTX-Sancheon, the company said on Tuesday.

The new train, which uses a distributed power system, is superior in acceleration and deceleration performance and passenger transport capacity, it said.

“In the domestic railway environment with many curved sections and short distances between stations, the distributed power system is more efficient,” said a Rotem official.

The system is also favored by other high-speed train operators globally, he said.

The first batch of the EMU-320 models will soon be delivered to the Korea Railroad Corp. (KORAIL), to be followed by a second batch in November.

Hyundai Motor Co. is the top shareholder of Hyundai Rotem with a 33.8% stake.

Write to Hyung-Kyu Kim at khk@hankyung.com
In-Soo Nam edited this article.