{"id":5390,"date":"2013-05-26T19:00:21","date_gmt":"2013-05-26T18:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.andrewgrantham.co.uk\/afghanistan\/?p=5390"},"modified":"2013-06-03T21:57:21","modified_gmt":"2013-06-03T20:57:21","slug":"eco-train-update","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrantham.co.uk\/afghanistan\/eco-train-update\/","title":{"rendered":"ECO train update"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/images\/rail\/tr-eco-train-201008-tcdd.jpg\" title=\"Eastbound ECO train in Turkey (Photo: TCDD)\"><\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve recently received some details of the status of the ECO container train plans, from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.otif.org\/en\/\">OTIF<\/a>:<\/p>\n<p>The idea was introduced in 2008 at the summit of ECO heads of state in Iran, and a trial run from Islamabad to Istanbul set off on 14 August 2009. A regular service started from 11 August 2010, and as of March 2013, 8 trains have operated from Pakistan and 6 from Turkey. The trains have a capacity of 26 TEU, and a running time of 14 days to cover 6349 km.<\/p>\n<p>The service was suspended from January 2012. Work is underway to tackle the following issues:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The need to improve the track on the 680 km from Quetta to Taftan. A feasibility report has been completed, and financial assistance from\u00a0prospective financial institutions is awaited.\n<li>Shortage of locomotives.\n<li>A need to include participation of private sector; a study of the feasibility\u00a0of private sector involvement is underway.\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;ve recently received some details of the status of the ECO container train plans, from OTIF: The idea was introduced in 2008 at the summit of ECO heads of state in Iran, and a trial run from Islamabad to Istanbul set off on 14 August 2009. A regular service started from 11 August 2010, and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[57,85,134,190],"class_list":["post-5390","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-middle-east-rail","tag-eco","tag-iran","tag-pakistan","tag-turkey"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrantham.co.uk\/afghanistan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5390","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=5390"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrantham.co.uk\/afghanistan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5390\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5437,"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrantham.co.uk\/afghanistan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5390\/revisions\/5437"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrantham.co.uk\/afghanistan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrantham.co.uk\/afghanistan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrantham.co.uk\/afghanistan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}