A total of five rail projects spanning 650 kilometers will be inaugurated by the end of the first half of the current Iranian year (March 21-Sept. 22), according to the deputy head of the Construction and Development of Transportation Infrastructure Company for Railroad, Ports and Airports Expansion.
Abbas Khatibi also said that these five rail projects are the 275-kilometer Yazd-Eqlid railroad, Bostanabad-Tabriz (44 kilometers), Hamedan-Sanandaj (150 kilometers), Zahedan-Khash (150 kilometers) and Rasht-Caspian (35 kilometers), the news portal of the Ministry of Roads and Urban Development reported.
According to the official, in the last Iranian year (March 2020-21), some 300 kilometers of railroads were inaugurated.
“Eight projects, constituting a total of 1,100 kilometers of railroads, have been prioritized for completion by the end of the current Iranian year [March 2022]. These were selected because they either connect provincial capitals to Tehran, complete local or international corridors, or link the country’s railroads to neighboring states.”
Speaking in a virtual meeting of the 36th Conference of the Organization for Cooperation of Railways (April 19-23), Saeed Rasouli, the managing director of the Islamic Republic of Iran Railways, said Iran’s rail freight transport grew by 29% in the last fiscal year (March 2020-21) compared with the year before, despite border closures during the first four months of the Covid-19 pandemic.
“Exports by the Islamic Republic of Iran Railways increased by 5% in the last fiscal year (March 2020-21) compared with the year before. More than 650,000 tons of cargo were carried across Iran-Turkey rail border crossing [Razi border terminal, Iran’s sole rail connection with the neighboring country], reaching a record high in the past 10 years,” IRNA quoted him as saying.
Noting that freight transport via Sarakhs rail border [with Turkmenistan] in Khorasan Razavi Province grew by 173%, the official said the broad gauge line in Inche Broun Station located in Iran’s northeastern Golestan Province was also connected to the border station of neighboring Turkmenistan to facilitate bogie exchange and increase the transportation capacity of wagons.
“Iran connected its eastern rail network to Afghanistan [the Khaf-Herat Railroad Project] in December and negotiations were carried out with Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Russia and official of other regional railroads, which would hopefully result in positive changes and improvements in international rail transportation,” Rasouli said.
“As we speak, Iran is trying to secure permits to operate freight trains across the Commonwealth of Independent States.”
On Nov. 24, Iran unveiled its first domestically-manufactured locomotive called “Pars 33” after 10 years, and with that Wagon Pars Company, which had ceased manufacturing locomotives a decade ago, officially resumed its activity in the field of locomotive production.
According to Mohammad Reza Mokhtari, Wagon Pars CEO, Iran has also succeeded in manufacturing wagon brakes.
“We had managed to manufacture some parts of this system before, but this is the first time that 100% locally-made wagon brakes have been installed on our rail fleet,” he said.
Wagon Pars, launched in 1974 in the city of Arak in Markazi Province, is a subsidiary of the Industrial Development and Renovation Organization and the largest manufacturer of freight, passenger and subway wagons in the Middle East.
“Very soon, we will become self-sufficient in all rail requirements, including passenger wagons and locomotives, to have a more significant role in the country’s economic developments,” Minister of Roads and Urban Development Mohammad Eslami was quoted as saying by the news portal of the Ministry of Roads and Urban Development.
“A total of 788 units of rolling stock, including passenger and cargo wagons as well as locomotives, were manufactured in Iran during the last Iranian year (March 2020-21), showing a 30% increase compared with the year before.”
According to the minister, all the manufactured rolling stock were 100% locally-made, which process will continue in the current year and the years to come and domestic wagon and locomotive construction firms keep receiving orders from rail transportation companies.
With the aim of reducing road traffic and battling air pollution, the Ministry of Roads and Urban Development has placed the development of Iran’s rail sector on top of its agenda.
Iran’s Sixth Five-Year Development Plan (2017-22) has tasked the government with increasing the share of rail in cargo and passenger transportation from the current 12% and 8% to 30% and 20% respectively by the end of the plan.
