As dictator of one of the world’s most isolated and secretive nations, Kim Jong-un does not leave North Korea very often.
When the third-generation dictator does leave his nation – usually to visit allies in China or Russia or, as he did in 2019, to travel to Vietnam for a meeting with then-US President Donald Trump – he does not use aeroplanes like many other world leaders.
Like his grandfather Kim Il Sung and father Kim Jong Il, Kim’s favoured mode of transport is the train, which he uses to travel around his own country and abroad.
For this task, he uses special trains known as Taeyangho trains, which are up to 20 carriages long.
Sometimes compared to the US President’s Air Force One but on rails, the trains are also known as ‘moving fortresses’ – and more than live up to their name.
The train is both heavily armed and armoured to protect the North Korean leader from any assassination attempts.
The carriages are reported to be bulletproof and explosive proof, to protect Kim and his entourage from short range attacks.
Reports suggest it is also heavily armed, with at least two machine gun emplacements, anti-tank missiles and surface-to-air missiles.
Within the train are carriages for Kim’s security detail and medical staff, as well as transport carriages including two armoured cars and an emergency helicopter should Kim need to retreat.
As well as these on-board features, an attack helicopter is reported to fly ahead of the train to ensure there are no ambushes ahead.
Pyongyang has also reportedly requested troops monitor the railway tracks the train is travelling on when going abroad.
All this armament slows the train down to around 31mph, which makes its journeys even longer than they would be otherwise.
And North Korea’s leaders have used the train to cover some incredible distances. In 1984, Kim Il Sung used a Taeyangho train to travel right across Russia and visit every country in the then Warsaw Pact before coming back the same way.
In 2001 his son Kim Jong Il, who is said to have had a fear of flying, took the train on a 10-day journey across Russia to meet Vladimir Putin in Moscow – a journey which will have had the time spent on it increased by the fact the train needs to change gauge when it crosses into Russia.
Kim Jong-un‘s trip to meet Mr Trump in Vietnam in 2019 is understood to have taken 65 hours via China.
Not that the leader travels uncomfortably, as he has his own bedroom and bathroom carriage, reception carriages to entertain foreign dignitaries and a luxury restaurant car which – according to Russian officials who accompanied his father on the 2001 trip to Moscow – served fresh lobsters flown out to the train and wines imported from France, among other delicacies.