A total of 50.47 million tons of commodities were transported by railroads in the last Iranian year (March 2018-19), showing an 8% increase compared with the previous year, according to a report released by the Ministry of Roads and Urban Development.
Based on the recent report, more than 12.12 million tons of goods were exported and over 2.71 million tons were imported through the national rail network during the period, indicating a 1.04% rise and a 11.72% year-on-year decline respectively, Mrud.ir reported citing figures released from the Islamic Republic of Iran Railways.
Close to 1.59 million kilometers of cargo were transited through the country via rail, which shows a 0.06% YOY fall.
According to the report, Iran's rail fleet consisted of 25,398 freight wagons, 1,724 passenger wagons and 928 locomotives by the end of the last Iranian year (March 20, 2019), registering a 3.47%, 3.54% and 1.2% increase respectively compared with the year before.
More than 14,529 kilometers of railroads connected different parts of the country by the end of the period under review. The figure indicates a 3.2% rise YOY.
Iran became a permanent member of the Council for Rail Transport of the Commonwealth of Independent States during the council’s 70th meeting held in the Finnish capital, Helsinki, on May 14-15 last year.
“By becoming a permanent member, Iran, which was previously an observer member, will help further expand rail transit between the country and Central Asian states. It will also have positive effects on the operations of the International North-South Transport Corridor that stretches from Europe to Southeast Asia,” said Saeed Rasouli, Iran’s deputy minister of roads and urban development and the head of Islamic Republic of Iran Railways, who represented Iran in the Helsinki meeting.
Turkmenistan, Armenia, Finland, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Azerbaijan, Ukraine and Belarus are members of the council that is currently chaired by Russia.
Expansion Plans
Iran is working to expand its rail network by 1,500 kilometers in the next two years to increase the country’s rail corridor share of the regional freight transportation, according to Minister of Roads and Urban Development Mohammad Eslami.
Eslami said the new railroads will include high-speed lines, adding that some of the old and busy lines across the country, including those around the capital Tehran, will become double-tracked to increase the safety and efficiency of train services, Fars News Agency reported.
The new projects would increase the length of Iran’s rail network to over 16,000 kilometers, on par with countries like Kazakhstan and Spain, raising its status in the list of 20 countries in the world in terms of the length of railroas.
Mohammad Baqer Nobakht, the head of Iran's Plan and Budget Organization, said 1,200 kilometers of the aforementioned 1,500 kilometers will be laid out in the next Iranian year (March 2020-21).
The rapid expansion of railroads in recent years has enabled the government to connect key provincial capitals, especially those in the mountainous western regions, to the national rail network.
Government authorities said recently that the average track-laying work across the country had increased from 120 kilometers a year in 2013 to more than 180 kilometers in 2017.
President Hassan Rouhani says rail construction so far into his two-term tenure (since 2013) accounts for 45% of all railroads built in Iran.
"The total length of Iran's rail network in over 90 years up until the beginning of my presidential term stood at 9,600 kilometers. At present, the figure stands at over 14,000 kilometers," he said.
By the end of Rouhani’s second term (August 2021), 50% of all railroads in Iran will have been constructed within the eight years of his presidential term.
