YouTube has this video from 1 March 2007, “3 TV News Reports on New Iran Railroad to Afghanistan”, about the opening of the Torbat-e Heydariyeh – Khaf railway within Iran, and a 200 km extension now under construction towards Herat in Afghanistan.
For those of us who don’t speak Persian(?), there is a translation here. Mr Mohammadizadeh, governor-general of the Province of Khorasan-e Razavi, says:
Construction work began on this railroad in the year 2002. It is 148 kilometers long. It has eight stations and cost about 50 billion tomans, fortunately it went into operation today [1 March 2007].
The primary objective in creating this line is to haul iron ore, with an annual load of about .52 million tons.
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More important is that the vital artery for the economic development of our nation with the friend and brother nation of Afghanistan will travel by way of this very railroad.
About 6 months ago inside Afghanistan the ground was broken for the Afghanistan railroad by our president of the republic’s first vice-president and today also the ground was broken for the line from Sangan to Harat inside Afghanistan.
The credits for ths project have been procured, and for the first time the culture of the railroad is coming into the friend and brother nation of Afghanistan and the nation of Afghanistan will have a train and a railroad.
It appears that the conditions that exist in Afghanistan in terms of reconstruction and the needed goods in the outside world, this railroad can be effective achieving economic development and the social welfare of the people of Afghanistan.
It can therefore be said in short that this project has great importance for the iron ore of Khaf, for the use of the people in several cities along the route and especially for establishing a railroad for government of the Islamic Republic of Iran for the people of Afghanistan.
…The line that goes into operation today is 148 kilometers long, but the work is beginning on a line into Afghanistan with about 50 kilometers inside our country and about 150 kilometers inside Afghanistan. This year about 45 billion tomans have been allocated for the new line, and we are hoping that this task will be completed in the year 2007.