{"id":1144,"date":"2009-02-03T12:00:56","date_gmt":"2009-02-03T11:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ccgi.ajg41.plus.com\/?p=1144"},"modified":"2009-02-03T12:00:56","modified_gmt":"2009-02-03T11:00:56","slug":"iran-building-rail-links-to-iraq-and-afghanistan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrantham.co.uk\/afghanistan\/iran-building-rail-links-to-iraq-and-afghanistan\/","title":{"rendered":"Iran building rail links to Iraq and Afghanistan"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.railwaygazette.com\/news_view\/article\/2008\/12\/9217\/network_expansion_is_in_full_swing.html\"><cite>Network expansion is in full swing<\/cite><\/a> is an article about the Iranian rail network in the January 2009 issue of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.railwaygazette.com\">Railway Gazette International<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The author is railway consultant David Brice, who has worked on transport projects in Afghanistan, including at the Hayratan terminal.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Work is currently well in hand on extension of RAI\u2019s Torbat &#8211; Sangan iron ore line across the border to <strong>Herat<\/strong> in Afghanistan (RG 1.08 p55). Whilst perhaps not a major development in terms of generating traffic, this line certainly has major political implications. Largely financed by the Iranian government, it will constitute the first major standard-gauge line in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n<p>A further extension to <strong>Sher Khan Bandar<\/strong> serving the northeast of Afghanistan is currently under investigation, and on November 23 2008 the Asian Development Bank announced that a protocol had been signed highlighting the importance of developing rail links from Herat through <strong>Mazar-i-Sharif<\/strong> as far as the current Uzbekistan Railways railhead at <strong>Hayratan<\/strong>, reached by a 1 520 mm gauge line from Termez. The Afghan government has requested technical and financial assistance from ADB for a pre-feasibility study.<\/p>\n<p>A proposed extension of this route beyond Sher Khan Bandar along the <strong>Wakhan Corridor<\/strong>, albeit through challenging terrain, could complete a direct connection from Iran to the rapidly expanding Chinese rail network, creating a standard-gauge through route between Europe and China.<br \/>\n[&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p>Iran &#8211; Iraq. Two links to Iraq are in hand, one from <strong>Khorramshahr<\/strong> to the port of <strong>Basra<\/strong>, and the other from Arak via <strong>Kermanshah<\/strong> to the Iraqi border at <strong>Kosrayi<\/strong>. This will cater for substantial flows of pilgrimage traffic once the political situation has normalised.<\/p>\n<p><cite>Source: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.railwaygazette.com\/news_view\/article\/2008\/12\/9217\/network_expansion_is_in_full_swing.html\">Railway Gazette International<\/a><\/cite>\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Network expansion is in full swing is an article about the Iranian rail network in the January 2009 issue of Railway Gazette International. The author is railway consultant David Brice, who has worked on transport projects in Afghanistan, including at the Hayratan terminal. Work is currently well in hand on extension of RAI\u2019s Torbat &#8211; [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[12,79,81,85,95,98,114],"class_list":["post-1144","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-afghanistans-railways","tag-adb","tag-hayratan","tag-herat","tag-iran","tag-khorramshahr","tag-kosrayi","tag-mazar-i-sharif"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrantham.co.uk\/afghanistan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1144","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrantham.co.uk\/afghanistan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrantham.co.uk\/afghanistan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrantham.co.uk\/afghanistan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrantham.co.uk\/afghanistan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1144"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrantham.co.uk\/afghanistan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1144\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrantham.co.uk\/afghanistan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrantham.co.uk\/afghanistan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrantham.co.uk\/afghanistan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}