Tehran-Savadkouh tourist train hosted ambassadors and embassy staff from Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden for a daylong tour on the scenic northern route last Thursday.
Tehran-Savadkouh is the first regular tourist railbus in Iran launched in August 2017. With a capacity of 700 passengers, the tourist line starts from Tehran and goes through the picturesque Savadkouh region in northern Iran, Tourism Online reported.
On its path to Savadkouh in Mazandaran Province, the Thursday train had stopovers in Varamin plain and Garmsar desert area located to the southeast of the capital and near Semnan Province, before taking a turn northward along Hablehroud River.
Passing through Simin Dasht and Zarrin Dasht, the passengers visited one of the well-known railroad constructions in Iran at Veresk and Se-Khat-Tala (Three gold lines) bridges, before arriving at the destination.
The railbus turned back to Tehran at the end of the day.
A railbus is a passenger rail vehicle similar to a bus that usually operates on little-used railroads. Passengers travel along verdant forests and towering mountains, stopping at designated points to see historical and cultural sites or purchase souvenirs in villages along the route.
Given the popularity of tourist trains across the world, Iran's national railroads company is endeavoring to catch up with other countries. In cooperation with a tour company, the railroads organization has embarked on a project to expand tourist trains across Iran.
A tourist train is not intended as a practical transportation, but as a museum-style attraction or a means of employing historical dining or sleeper train cars as somewhere to eat or sleep for novelty or entertainment purposes. Savadkouh County, located in Mazandaran Province, is a major ecotourism site in Iran.
