At 9:33 a.m. last Thursday, two electric monorail vehicles departed from the entrance of the Eorimok Trail on Mount Halla on South Korea's largest island of Jeju to ferry a group of passengers up one of the country's iconic slopes.

The train ride was part of a test run of what the local park hopes will be a service that can help elderly and physically challenged visitors better take in the sights of the resort island's most notable landmarks.

Five minutes into the ride, the vehicles suddenly skiied down the slope to reach a wooden bridge that crossed over a creek. It then ran up a very steep section with what seemed like an incline of more than 45 degrees.

Anxious, all the passengers tightened their grips on the handrail.

At around 10 a.m. a sign appeared that said the small train had reached an altitude of 1,400 meters. Two minutes later, the monorail emerged from the thick forest to a wide, open hill called Sajebi.

In 30 minutes the monorail moved some 2.4 kilometers, which translates into a 453-meter ascent.

During the ride, the monorail suddenly stopped with the driver saying it was raining up the mountain. The driver then passed out vinyl raincoats to passengers.

As predicted, the rain got thicker and turned into a downpour in no time. Pouring rain made it hard to see very far. The huge Baekrokdam Lake, which sits at the top of the 1,950-meter mountain, disappeared into the billowing white, foggy mist of the downpour.

Only after another 10 minutes in the pouring rain did the train arrive at a shelter located 1,700 meters above sea level. It was 10:45 a.m. Overall, it took an hour and 12 minutes from the station.

All the passengers, eight in total, sat together at the shelter to talk about the possible new service at the national park.

"It normally takes two hours to climb up here but taking the monorail shortens the time by about 50 minutes," said Bu Jeong-hwa, who has been working at the park for 20 years.

"Previous monorails moved 40 meters per minute, which is similar to the pace of an average climber. They were powered by gasoline and people complained of the smell," he said. "Electric monorails are faster at 60-80 meters and there is no such smell."

As pointed out by Bu, there was no gasoline smell, but there were a lot of metal scraping sounds.

One improvement that can be made, suggested by those who took the train, is to improve the seats and tighten the one-strap seatbelts. They also pointed out that it would be better for the monorail to have some sort of cover to keep out the rain or cold.

Except for a few minor complaints, everyone agreed that it would be very convenient for the elderly or the disabled who were otherwise unable to climb up by themselves to see South Korea's highest peak.

The park management office said it will continue working to improve the monorail itself and the infrastructure, including the stations.

The monorail service will be test run in the coming months.

From next year, the park will launch a special program for the elderly and physically challenged.

For three years from 2018 it will replace the existing rails with slightly bigger ones for a more stable run while seeking a license from the government to officially launch a commercial monorail operation.

"In the long term, we plan to change the monorail to two rails for stability. Also, we plan to beautify the exterior to appeal to tourists," said Kim Chang-jo, a manager of the park.

In 1997, Korea built its first mountain monorail at the Eorimok Trail, originally to transfer earth to repair the mountain.

Later, more monorails were constructed on other trail courses. This has been helpful in collecting trash and evacuating injured climbers. (Yonhap)