More Funding for NW Rail Project

A total of 14 trillion rials ($79 million) worth of investments have been made in the 175-kilometer-long Ardabil-Mianeh railroad project so far, according to the head of the Plan and Budget Organization.
“This year around 10 trillion rials [$56 million] will be spent on this project,” Mohammad Baqer Nobakht was also quoted as saying by IRNA.
The railroad connecting the northwestern province of Ardabil to the national railroad network has been 14 years in the making.
The project has 12 sections, 35% of which pass through mountainous and inaccessiblr regions, 45% through hilly land and 20% through plains.
Ardabil-Mianeh railroad has 62 tunnels stretching over 23,810 meters and is designed for trains commuting at 160 kilometers per hour.  
Kheirollah Khademi a deputy minister and the head of Construction and Development of Transportation Infrastructure Company of Iran, says that by the end of the fiscal 2021-22, the provinces of Ardabil, Kurdestan and Chaharmahal-Bakhtiari will be connected to the national rail network as part of Iran’s prioritized rail projects.
Other projects in the government’s list of priorities are the 610-kilometer-long Chabahar-Zahedan railroad, Yazd-Eqlid (280 kilometers) and Khaf-Herat (136 kilometers).