First trains cross Korean Cold War border since 1951

CHEJIN, South Korea (Reuters) - Two trains from North and South Korea crossed the heavily fortified border on Thursday, restoring 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. The one-off runs covered about 25 km (15 miles) each way.

The trains each carried 100 South Koreans and 50 North Koreans -- including celebrities, politicians and a South Korean driver from one of the last trains to cross before rail links were cut in 1951.

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

Across the peninsula, on the east coast, South Korean soldiers opened a gate across the tracks to welcome the train from the North.

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

The South Korean train which left Munsan was seen off to fireworks, traditional drumming and hundreds of people waving flags depicting a unified Korean peninsula.

Every major South Korean network covered the start of the historic crossing live, but the train quickly disappeared from view on entering the Demilitarized Zone, the 4-km (2.5-mile) buffer strip which has separated the adversaries since the 1953 armistice. Seoul's national security laws bar virtually all civilian access to the DMZ.

North Korea was silent for hours after the historic crossings, finally issuing a bland, four-paragraph report on its KCNA news agency noting that the event had occurred and listing the officials involved.

"I wish I could operate this train myself," said Han Chun-ki, 80, the driver who made one of the last cross-border runs more than a half century ago. "I never thought this day would come."

Both trains later returned to their respective bases.

TRAIN FROM THE NORTH

On the east coast, the Northern train arrived bearing a banner reading: "The Train Once Boarded by Great President Kim Il-Sung."

Children presented flowers to officials at the station, one of several cavernous facilities built by the South near the border that have been mostly idle.

Passengers dined together and North Korean cabin attendants, young women dressed in crisp military-style uniforms, posed for pictures with South Koreans at the station.

North Korea's military, fearful of increased openings between their isolated state and the outside world, finally agreed last week to the run. Seoul has been pressing for more crossings.

The South Korean government faces much criticism 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.

Seoul, mindful of the hundreds of billions of dollars it would cost to reunify with its impoverished neighbor, has sought to gradually -- critics say glacially -- bring the two together.

The two Koreas, still technically at war half a century after the fighting ended with that inconclusive truce, have grown used to living with a broad strip of razor wire and land-mines dividing their common homeland. More than 1 million troops are stationed near the DMZ.

To entice the North to allow the historic rail crossing, Seoul has offered $80 million in aid for its light industries.

Eventually, South Korea wants to send passengers and cargo via its neighbor 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 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. The other is a factory park where companies from the South use cheap North Korean labor and land to make goods.

(Editing by Roger Crabb; with additional reporting by Jessica Kim in Munsan)