Herat to Kandahar railway studies commissioned

Posted on by Andrew Grantham

Acting Minister of Public Works Mohammad Issa Sani has signed five contracts for domestic companies to produce detailed designs for a 737.5 km railway from Herat to Kandahar.1

The contracts announced by the ministry on 6 February 2025 have a total value of 264m afghanis (about €3.5m, which doesn’t sound like very much for a major railway project!). The studies are to be completed within eight months.

Section Route Length, km Contract value, afghanis Contractor
1 Herat – Shindand 120 51 978 999 Afghan-German Construction, Road Construction and Railway Company
2 Shindand – Farah 120 45 631 267 Hask Engineering Services Company
3 Farah – Zaranj – Ghor Ghori 188.8 69 278 567 Hask Engineering Services Company
4 Ghor Ghori – Lashkargah 171 60 331 408 Arya Khan Afghan Construction, Road Construction and Logistics Services Company
5 Lashkargah – Kandahar 137.7 37 315 742 Arya Khan Afghan Construction, Road Construction and Logistics Services Company

The ministry said the start of practical work for the project would be dependent on the budget and financing.

The 1435mm gauge line from Khaf in Iran is currently being extended towards Herat. There are also ambitions to extend the 1520 mm gauge railway from Turkmenistan which currently terminates at Towraghondi onwards to Herat.2

There have been various proposals over the years for a line linking Kandahar to the 1676 mm gauge railhead at Chaman in Pakistan.

References

  1. X (Twitter) thread, Ministry of Public Works, 2025-02-06 ↩
  2. Turkmenistan – Afghanistan rail link to be extended, Railway Gazette International, 9 October 2024 ↩

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