The Gyeongjeon Line (Gyeongjeonseon) is a railway line serving South Gyeongsang and South Jeolla Provinces in South Korea. It covers a total of 300.6 km, from Samnangjin Station in Miryang, South Gyeongsang, to Gwangju Songjeong Station in Gwangju, South Jeolla. History An east-west railway along Korea's southern shore was long seen as a strategic route, but it took a number of attempts to complete the line. The first section of the line was opened as a branch from the newly built Gyeongbu Line at Samnangjin to Masan in May 1905, which was named the Masan Line. On December 1, 1923, the Jinju Line opened from Masan to Jinju, extending the line to . A branch from Changwon on the Masan Line to Jinhae, the Jinhae Line, opened on November 11, 1926. Meanwhile, construction started in the opposite direction from Songjeong-ri (today Gwangju·Songjeong) on the Honam Line, the other end of the future Gyeongjeon Line, with the first to Gwangju opened in July 1922. The Gwangju Line was completed to Yeosu on December 25, 1930. Six years later, on December 16, 1936, the Suncheon–Yeosu section became part of the newly established Jeolla Line, leaving the long Songjeong-ri–Suncheon section as the Gwangju Line. Following the 1961 coup, the Supreme Council for National Reconstruction started South Korea's first five-year plan, which included a construction program to complete the railway network, to foster economic growth. As part of the program, work began on a line to plug the gap between Jinju and Suncheon on April 28, 1962. The difficult long section included 38 bridges with a total length of and 27 tunnels with a total length of , as well as 13 new stations. The Jinju–Suncheon line opened on February 7, 1968, when the whole railway line from Samnangjin to Songjeong-ri was renamed the Gyeongjeon Line. By the mid-2000s, alignment modifications shortened the line length to . Upgrade The line is being upgraded to an electrified and double-tracked line for 180 km/h in stages, to facilitate regional development. On September 1, 2010, the South Korean government announced a strategic plan to reduce travel times from Seoul to 95% of the country to under 2 hours by 2020. As part of the plan, the entire Gyeongjeon Line is to be further upgraded for 230 km/h. Samnangjin-Masan-Jinju The upgraded section will be 101.4 km long. The 41 km section until Masan includes a re-alignment with tunnels