{"id":4468,"date":"2011-12-21T22:36:12","date_gmt":"2011-12-21T22:36:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.andrewgrantham.co.uk\/afghanistan\/?p=4468"},"modified":"2011-12-21T22:36:12","modified_gmt":"2011-12-21T22:36:12","slug":"test-train-runs-to-mazar-i-sharif","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrantham.co.uk\/afghanistan\/test-train-runs-to-mazar-i-sharif\/","title":{"rendered":"Test train runs to Mazar-i-Sharif"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It seems a test train ran on the <a href=\"\/afghanistan\/railways\/hairatan-to-mazar-i-sharif\/\">Hairaton to Mazar-i-Sharif railway line<\/a> on 21 December 2011.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>There are lots of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/world\/asia-pacific\/afghanistan-opening-first-major-train-service-providing-key-link-for-us-supplies-trade\/2011\/12\/21\/gIQAp9ii8O_story.html\">media reports<\/a> using &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/hosted.ap.org\/dynamic\/stories\/A\/AS_AFGHANISTAN_RAILROAD?SITE=CASRP&#038;SECTION=HOME&#038;TEMPLATE=DEFAULT\">Afghanistan opening first major train service<\/a>&#8220;, an Associated Press report by Kay Johnson and Rahim Faiez.\n<li> The BBC reports the &#8220;seven-carriage train&#8221; ran empty:<br \/>\n<blockquote><p>The first journey on Wednesday was intended to test the track and signals, before the formal opening of the project at which President Hamid Karzai is expected to attend.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This is a matter of pride for us and a very important issue for Afghanistan,&#8221; said Deputy Public Works Minister Noor Gul Mangal, who was there to watch the train arrive in Mazar-e-Sharif.<\/p>\n<p>He said the government planned to build another line into Turkmenistan, to the north-west.<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/world-asia-16287929\">Afghan railway: First train runs on new line in north<\/a> BBC News, 21 December 2011\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<li>The <cite>Financial Times<\/cite> says it was to carry wheat, and has a round-up of Afghan rail projects:<br \/>\n<blockquote><p>Locomotives had conducted test runs on the new line but would haul their first commercial cargo on Wednesday in the form of a wheat shipment belonging to the World Food Programme, the UN relief agency, said an ADB official in Kabul.<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.ft.com\/cms\/s\/0\/c2f1320a-2b06-11e1-8a38-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1hD7OboQj\">Afghan rail plan to boost mineral exports<\/a>, Matthew Green, Islamabad, Financial Times, 20 December 2011\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It seems a test train ran on the Hairaton to Mazar-i-Sharif railway line on 21 December 2011. There are lots of media reports using &#8220;Afghanistan opening first major train service&#8220;, an Associated Press report by Kay Johnson and Rahim Faiez. The BBC reports the &#8220;seven-carriage train&#8221; ran empty: The first journey on Wednesday was intended [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,10],"tags":[114],"class_list":["post-4468","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-afghanistans-railways","category-projects","tag-mazar-i-sharif"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrantham.co.uk\/afghanistan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4468","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=4468"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrantham.co.uk\/afghanistan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4468\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrantham.co.uk\/afghanistan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4468"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrantham.co.uk\/afghanistan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4468"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrantham.co.uk\/afghanistan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4468"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}