Reports indicate that Kim Jong Un may embark on a trip to Russia in the near future, utilizing the traditional mode of transportation for North Korean leaders: luxury, armoured trains. This journey would mark Kim’s first foreign visit since the onset of the pandemic. Speculations suggest that his purpose for visiting Russia would be to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin and discuss North Korean arms sales, potentially assisting Russia in replenishing depleted reserves resulting from the Ukraine conflict. The previous encounter between the two leaders occurred in Vladivostok in April 2019, where Kim arrived on his distinctive green-and-yellow train. The Eastern Economic Forum, scheduled to take place during the same period, may serve as the setting for their meeting. The timing of these reports is significant, as both leaders are increasingly at odds with the United States. The article delves into the history and symbolism behind the luxury trains used by North Korean leaders, highlighting their opulence and contrast with the poverty experienced by most North Koreans. Kim Jong Un’s father, Kim Jong Il, also favored train travel during his time in power, mainly journeying to China. Kim Jong Il’s passing during a train trip in 2011 has been documented by North Korea’s state media. Konstantin Pulikovsky, a Russian official who accompanied Kim Jong Il on a three-week trip to Moscow, detailed extravagant elements of the journey, including cases of expensive French wine and lavish dining options. While luxury is one aspect, the primary concern for North Korean leaders when traveling is security. Reports suggest that North Korea possesses 90 specially designed carriages, operating three trains in tandem: one to examine the tracks ahead, one housing the leader and their entourage, and a third for additional personnel. These state-of-the-art trains also feature high-tech communication equipment and flat-screen TVs to allow the leader to issue commands and receive briefings. To emphasize their symbolic significance, a life-size replica of a train carriage is on permanent display at a mausoleum near Pyongyang, where the embalmed bodies of Kim Jong Il and his father Kim Il Sung rest. Kim Jong Un has utilized his family’s armoured train for meetings with various world leaders, including Putin, Xi Jinping, and Donald Trump. However, unlike his father, Kim does occasionally travel by air due to his adolescent years spent in Switzerland. His first public flight occurred in 2018 when he flew to Dalian, China, to meet Xi Jinping. Interestingly, Kim’s official plane, named ‘Chammae-1’ after North Korea’s national bird, is a modified version of the Soviet IL-62. It has a seating capacity of approximately 200 individuals and a maximum range of 9,200 kilometers (~5,700 miles). On the other hand, Putin has also transitioned to using an armoured train following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in early 2022, according to a defector from Putin’s elite security service. For Kim’s prior rendezvous with Putin, he embarked on a lengthy rail journey commencing in Pyongyang and traversing the country’s aging railways along the eastern coast until reaching the Russian border. Analysts question whether another meeting between the two leaders will be arranged during the Eastern Economic Forum, as Kim and his predecessors have favored standalone summitry when conducting rare trips abroad. Notably, Kim visited China four times between 2018 and 2019, with some journeys completed by train and others by plane. Furthermore, he borrowed a Chinese aircraft for his meeting with Donald Trump in Singapore in June 2018, as his own jet was deemed unsafe at the time. Kim then utilized his train for the subsequent meeting with Trump in Hanoi, Vietnam. Due to border closures imposed at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, Kim has not engaged in any face-to-face meetings with foreign leaders recently. Hence, his potential trip to Russia might signal a revitalization of summit-driven diplomacy, potentially paving the way for a subsequent meeting with Xi Jinping in China, according to Yang Moo-jin, president of the University of North Korean Studies in South Korea.