The luxury train, ‘Jewels of Persia’, with 65 passengers and 35 crew members finally arrived in the Iranian province of Zanjan. The train, operated by the Golden Eagle company, arrived after a four-hour delay, having experienced some difficulties in Van, in eastern Turkey.
The train pulled into Zanjan railway station on Thursday afternoon at 17.30, local time. From there, it is heading to Yazd with a stopover at the architectural masterpiece and handsomely embellished 14th century Gonbad-e Soltaniyeh.
The tickets which were sold at between $9,000 and $14,000 per head, “have sold out until 2016”, the Golden Eagle company head, Tim Littler said, CHN reported. There are two scheduled trips organized for the current year, and 9 trips arranged for next year. “There appears to be a great deal of interest to visit Iran,” Littler said.
So far, two routes have been set out through Iran, one of which passes through Zanjan, Yazd, Isfahan, Shiraz and Tehran and the second commences in Tehran and passes through Mashhad, Kemran, Shiraz, Isfahan.
Future of Iran Rail Travel
Other routes are in the pipeline that will encompass a number of historic cities including Bam.
The railway network in Iran does not differ greatly to comparable countries like Turkey, the Golden Eagle head believes, adding that there “is a lot of potential to further develop train travel in Iran in the future.”
With regards to security, Littler stated that “Iran is a very safe country” and that the unrest the rest of the Middle East is currently facing, such threats from ISIS do not feature here.
The Golden Eagle’s first train tour is carrying passengers from Germany, France, United States, United Kingdom, Holland, Denmark, Iceland and Mexico. The company head predicts that passengers from many other countries will be introduced to Iran during future trips.
The Pasargad Tours head, who co-organized the tour, has estimated that each train passenger will generate approximately $2000 in revenues for the country.
The train, which departed Budapest’s Nyugati terminus in mid-October, travelled through Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and Turkey prior to the Iranian leg of the journey. Its final destination is Tehran.
