Kim arrived on Tuesday afternoon local time at Beijing's railway station and was met by two high-ranking Chinese party officials, including China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi, according to the North Korean state news agency KCNA.
The arrival was shrouded in secrecy, but train spotters in China had seen during the day how a train with North Korean flags was approaching the capital.
Thus, Kim is following a family tradition of traveling by train.
It started as early as under Kim Il-Sung, the current leader Kim Jong-Un's grandfather. He used trains as a rolling headquarters during the Korean War and when he later took over the country, he is said to have constructed several heavily fortified palaces that can only be reached via special railways.
The son Kim Jong-Il was also afraid of flying and took the preference for armored trains to new heights. In 2001, he took the train to Moscow, a round trip of 2,000 miles that took 24 days with the heavy special train. The train is said to have been well-stocked with fresh lobster and boxes of French wines, according to a Russian official who was on board.
Harder to attack
When Kim Jong-Il died in 2011, it happened, of course, according to the dictatorship's historiography, in the midst of the step, on board the armored train.
It is called Taeyangho - "sun" in Korean - and has also been likened to a rail-borne variant of the US President's plane Air Force One. According to South Korean experts, it is built to withstand most types of military attacks.
Unlike an airplane, which can be shot down, a moving train is much harder to attack, says Park Min-Ju, professor at the South Korean university KNUE, according to the news agency AFP.
Colleague Koh Yu-Hwan at Dongguk University also sees it as a propaganda tool for Kim Jong-Un, who inherited power after Kim Jong-Il.
Traveling by train takes time, but it attracts global attention. Before major events, the world follows him and the long journey makes the spotlight stay there.
Not afraid of flying
Kim the younger has used this several times. In February 2019, he spent 60 hours on the train to Vietnam and the summit with US President Donald Trump.
And both later in 2019 and 2023, the dictator took the train to the Russian Far East and meetings with Vladimir Putin.
Unlike his father, Kim Jong-Un is not afraid of flying and has on several occasions traveled abroad with North Korea's presidential plane Chammae-1. But it's been a while - the plane is believed to be old and poorly serviced.
So much suggests that the armored trains will remain the Kim regime's favorite.
