culture

Pak Ho Chol, head of the West Pyongyang Locomotive Corps, is one of those honest people who shoulder the heavy burden of the country by themselves and faithfully follow the road of patriotism. 

He was appointed head of the West Pyongyang Locomotive Corps in early spring over 20 years ago.

Though he was diagnosed with a fatal disease by which others might have fallen long ago, Pak got up and burnt his body like a candle for over 20 years with a strong will, turning the locomotive corps into a group of innovators in the rail transport sector.  

For man, it is easier said than done to rush at life without rest and stop.

But as he regarded patriotism as his lifetime motto and was determined not to fall before fulfilling his responsibility and duty, Pak worked hard to revitalize his unit  step by step, while combating the severe disease that tormented him so much.

He started his social life at the West Pyongyang Locomotive Corps. After graduating from then Pyongyang University of Railways, he performed several jobs in the railways sector and then was promoted to head of the West Pyongyang Locomotive Corps. 

But his old workplace, to which he returned after 10 years, lagged far behind the developing reality.  

He remodelled equipment together with technicians and skilled workers to upgrade the backward factory and worked without rest to give the corps a facelift. He exchanged opinions open-mindedly with employees, willingly went on the trips of freight transport together with engine drivers and repaired locomotives in the field with workers to find the ways to revitalize the unit.

“The word ‘human bomb’ is not only used in battlegrounds where hails of bullets fall. We cannot but compare the life he has lived for over 20 years, rushing at life with determination not to be afraid of death if it were for the prosperity of the country, to the word ‘human bomb’,” said an official of the West Pyongyang Locomotive Corps. 

Thanks to his painstaking efforts, creative thinking and great zeal, the locomotive corps began to breathe life into revitalization, equipping itself with facilities needed for repair and maintenance of locomotives and replacing old single-storey buildings with new several-storey ones.

It also built a base in which it can make middle repair and overhaul of locomotives properly and became a group of persons of ability in the rail transport sector.

Today, the West Pyongyang Locomotive Corps undertakes the repair of locomotives of other units though it is not its duty, while overfulfilling its own national economic plan, the number of locomotives accounting for nearly half of the annual work done by it. It is just a group of patriots who always think of national interests first beyond the small fence of their unit and take the lead in relieving the burden of the country and Pak Ho Chol always stands in the van.