November 2nd, 2008
The website of Uzbek national railway UTY has a news story about the recent agreement with Islamic Republic of Iran Railways. Google’s translation from Russian gives:
30-10-2008 October 28, TG
Tehran had a meeting and talks executive director of Iranian railways, Hassan Ziyari with the chairman of the board GAZHK Uzbekistan Temir YULLARI Achilbaem Ramatovym.
At the meeting the parties focused on specific issues expand bilateral cooperation in rail transport. In particular, the parties agreed on the establishment of private transport companies, which will transit rail transport, and joint investments in rail transport corridor project, which will link the railways of Iran and Uzbekistan through Afghanistan.
Source: UTY
Iran’s Press TV gives more details:
Thu, 30 Oct 2008 23:30:25 GMT
Iran and Uzbekistan have signed a nine-article cooperation pact on railway cooperation after holding a two-day meeting in Tehran.
The agreement was finalized between the managing directors of the national railway companies of Iran and Uzbekistan Thursday.
The pact includes initiating a container train transit route between Almaty, Tashkent, and Istanbul, launching a container train route between Tashkent and Bandar Abbas, a 25 percent discount to be granted to Iran for using Uzbek carriages, the passage of Iranian railroad cars through the Uzbek network and settling outstanding accounts between Iran-Uzbekistan railways
[...]
“Establishing private transit transportation companies and joint investments in launching railway networks among Iran, Afghanistan, and Uzbekistan will allow Uzbekistan access to the Persian Gulf waterway,” Ziyari added.
[...]
Read in full at Press TV
While looking for more information, I came across Helmut Uttenthaler’s Trains in Uzbekistan blog.
Tags: Iran, Uzbekistan
Posted in Afghanistan's railways | No Comments »
October 30th, 2008
Iran’s Fars news agency reports
News number: 8708080931 14:39 | 2008-10-29
TEHRAN (FNA)- Managing Director of the Islamic Republic Railways Hassan Ziari said in a meeting with his Uzbek counterpart that cooperation between the two countries will further expand in the field.
According to a report by the Public Relations Department of the entity, he referred to the significance of railway link between the two states and said that development of railway network between Iran, Afghanistan and Uzbekistan will facilitate Uzbekistan’s access to the Persian Gulf waters.
Rahmatov, for his part said that his country is keen to promote cooperation with Iran in the field, the Islamic republic news agency reported.
The two officials met on Tuesday to review development of railway cooperation.
Source: Fars
Tags: Iran, Uzbekistan
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October 29th, 2008
All Things Pakistan has some some bad news from August about damage to the Khyber Pass railway - an historic bridge has been washed away by the 2008 monsoon season rains.
Extensive damage to the track had also occured in 2006 and 2007.
Tags: Khyber Pass, Pakistan
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October 26th, 2008
There are photographs of the railway across the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan border at www.wuestenfuchs.com, the website of Norbert Ratzke of Köln who was in Herat from January to April 2004.
The pictures show a 1520 mm gauge diesel loco (half of a 2ТЭ10Л?) crossing the border, and the freight yard at Towraghondi.
There is no railway transport in the country. At the Turkmen-Afghan border a Russian train runs about 500 meters on Afghan territory. There it is unloaded and returns to Turkmenistan.
In 2007 Turkmenistan launched a USD 550 000 programme to upgrade the line.
Tags: Towraghondi, Turkmenistan
Posted in Afghanistan's railways | 1 Comment »
October 20th, 2008
Quqnoos reports on the construction of the line from Iran to Herat.
Written by Zabiullah Jhanmal
Sunday, 19 October 2008 10:32
Ministry hopes to have the railway finished by the end of the year
A new railway linking Iran with the western Afghan city of Herat is 60% complete, the Ministry of Public Affairs said.
The Khawaf-Herat railway, built by the government of Iran, is expected to be completed by the end of the year.
The ministry said it planned to build more railway lines to meet the demand for transportation links between Afghanistan and its neighbours, who use Afghanistan as a transit route for goods travelling to other parts of the region.
The ministry says rail transport is five times cheaper than transporting goods by road.
But one kilometer of railway built in Afghanistan costs about $2 million, the ministry said, and a planned railway between Herat and Tajikistan will cost about $4 billion.
Deputy minister for public affaris, Ahmad Wali Rasooli, said: “After the completion of road constructions throughout the country, and with the increase of transported goods, we are now turning our attention to railroads.
“Now there is a real need for the construction of rail-roads in the country. We plan to connect our borders with our neighboring countries via rail.”
The ministry said the construction of railways between Afghansitan and its neighbours would speed up the flow of goods across the country’s borders.
Source: Quqnoos
Tags: Herat, Iran, Quqnoos, Tajikistan
Posted in Afghanistan's railways | No Comments »
October 18th, 2008
China extends influence into Central Asia, says a report about railway building in China by Malcolm Moore in the Daily Telegraph of 18 October 2008.
The move will connect Xinjiang to railway lines as far off as Moscow and Tehran and a direct route is also being planned through the Hindu Kush to Kabul. The lines will open Central Asia to Chinese goods and companies, and will serve as conduits for oil and petrol to be brought back. Source: Daily Telegraph 2008-10-18 (from the printed version - the online version has minor differences)
This Afghan line is presumbly related to the copper mine project. A schematic map in the printed version of the newspaper shows a railway continuing onwards from Kabul to Tehran. Other plans have suggested a line from the existing railhead at Hayratan to Herat, then to Iran over the line which is now under construction.
Tags: China, Kabul
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October 12th, 2008
In 2007 equipment for the German military at Mazar-e-Sharif was sent by rail from Berlin to Hayratan, taking 28 to 32 days to cover around 6000 km via Poland, Belarus, Russia, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.
STUTE unterstützt Bundeswehr mit kompetenter Transportlogistik (PDF) is a German-language article about it published by STUTE.
Tags: Bundeswehr, Germany, Hayratan
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September 28th, 2008
There is a a letter in the August 2008 issue of Railway Gazette International from railway consultant David Brice, who has worked in Afghanistan providing advice on transport.
He considers the options for the railway planned to run from the Aynak copper mine to China via Dushanbe and Kashgar, concluding that standard gauge would be the best choice, and “the opportunity to avoid tedious gauge changes must not be passed up.”
Tags: China, copper mine, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan
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September 14th, 2008
Simon Darvill has undertaken extensive research into industrial locomotives in south Asia, and the results have been compiled into a new website, www.ilsa.org.in which is now live.
There are detailed records of industrial locos which have been used in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Burma and Bhutan (yes, really!) since the early 1850s.
Included in the section on railways used for military purposes in India up to 1947 are details of railways used for British overseas campaigns up until the end of World War I. This includes the campaign in Mespotamia (now Iraq.)
Simon has supplied this site with details of locomotives in Afghanistan; his site also has an Afghan section.
Tags: India, industrial railway
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September 10th, 2008
In ‘Just World News’, journalist Helena Cobban writes about China’s role in the Aynak copper mine project. The plans include a rail link to China.
China buys in to Iraqi, Afghan end-games
Posted by Helena Cobban at August 30, 2008 01:35 PM
…
If the Chinese really are also going to build a rail line that comes from western China, through Tajikstan, down through Afghanistan (including Aynak,) and through Pakistan to Karachi, then that is extremely significant.
I think the China-Tajikstan connector is already underway…
But the whole project, when completed, will have huge benefits:
- for China, in its continuing drive to bring economic development to its far-west regions,
- for Tajikstan and the other landlocked former-Soviet Stans, who have pretty good Soviet-era railway systems– but so far, most of them connect to the outside world only through Russia. This new connector would give them new outlets, to both China and the Arabian Sea.
- for Pakistan, which gets access to a whole new hinterland and trading bloc there in Stanistan, and finally–
- for Afghanistan, which gets its first ever long distance rail line– and one that connects, moreover, to such a lot of other interesting and potentially lucrative places. It also thereby gets a way to start exporting not just the massive amounts of copper said to exist in Aynak but all the rest of its currently barely scratched-at wealth of mineral resources.
Win-win-win all round, I’d say. And not just because I’m a committed ferrophile.
Read the full article at ‘Just World News’
Tags: Aynak, China, copper mine, Tajikistan
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