First trains cross Korean Cold War border since 1951

CHEJIN, South Korea, May 17 (Reuters) Two trains from North and South Korea crossed the heavily armed border today, restoring for the first time an artery severed in the 1950-1953 fratricidal war and fanning dreams of unification.

It took the two Koreas 56 years to send the trains one starting in the South and one in the North across the Cold War's last frontier for the one-off runs of about 25 km.

The trains carried 100 South Koreans and 50 North Koreans including celebrities, politicians and a South Korean conductor from one of the last trains to cross before the rail link was cut in 1951.

''Today the heart of the Korean peninsula will start beating again,'' South Korean Unification Minister Lee Jae-joung said before the crossing at the South's Munsan station, about 50 km northwest of Seoul.

''The trains represent the dreams, the hopes and the future of the two Koreas,'' Lee said.

The train from the South was seen off to fireworks, traditional drumming and hundreds of people waving flags showing a unified Korean peninsula.

The crossing was carried live by every major South Korean network, but the train quickly disappeared from view on the approach to the North Korean side due to Seoul's long-standing security laws.

There has been no word from North Korea about what happened on its side of the railroad.

''I wish I could operate this train myself,'' said Han Chun-ki, 80, the conductor who made one of the last cross-border runs more than a half century ago. ''I never thought this day would come.'' TRAIN FROM THE NORTH On the east coast, South Korean soldiers opened a gate across the tracks at the southern end of the Demilitarised Zone (DMZ) buffer to welcome the train from the North, which had a banner reading: ''The Train Once Boarded by Great President Kim Il-Sung.'' Children presented flowers to officials upon arrival at the station, one of several cavernous facilities built by the South near the border that have been mostly idle.

Passengers from the two Koreas dined together and after much coaxing, the conductor from the North shook hands with the South Korean station master.

North Korea's military, fearful of increased openings between the isolated country and the outside world, cancelled a planned run a year ago. It agreed last week to the run, despite pressure from Seoul for more crossings.

The South Korean government has been criticised at home for sending massive aid to the North only to see Pyongyang respond to its largesse by halting cooperation projects and sparking a security crisis with a nuclear test last year.

South Korea, mindful of the hundreds of billions of dollars it would cost to unify with its impoverished neighbour, has sought to gradually critics say glacially bring the two together.

The two Koreas, still technically still at war because their conflict ended only in a truce, have lived with a razor wire and land-mine strewn border dividing the peninsula for decades, while over a million troops are stationed near the DMZ.

To entice the North to allow the crossing, South Korea has offered some 80 million dollars in aid for its light industries.

Eventually, South Korea, which only shares a border with the North, wants to send passengers and cargo via its neighbour into China and Russia and link with the Trans-Siberian railway.

Export-dependent South Korea could see huge savings in moving cargo if North Korea allowed the rail link to develop.

The rail links it rebuilt are designed to help serve two projects in the North.

One is a mountain resort built by an affiliate of the Hyundai Group where South Koreans can visit and the other is a factory park where companies from the South use cheap North Korean labour and land to make goods.

REUTERS DS HS1116