At Rasht station, officials of Iran Ministry of Roads and Urban Development and country’s Management and Planning Organization (MPO) have launched the first trial run on Qazvin-Rasht railway line.
Commercial rail freight services are set to begin by the end of this year.
“Through this rail line, goods will be transported to Azerbaijan, Russia and Europe via Astara to the international rail corridor,” Kheirollah Khademi, the managing director of Iran’s Construction and Development of Transportation Infrastructures Company said at the ceremony.
The 164-km Qazvin-Rasht railway line is part of Rasht-Astara project that will link Azerbaijan and Iran railway networks. Initially, 5 million tonnes will be transported on the railway section and the volume will increase to more than 10 million tonnes. According to the estimations, 4 million passenger will be transported on the line.
Rasht-Astara railway project is jointly implemented by Azerbaijan and Iran, each of the two countries providing the 50 percent of the total cost of the project, which has a value of USD 1 billion. The two countries are making efforts to connect their railways through the Qazvin-Rasht-Astara route, connecting Iran’s northern city of Astara to Azerbaijan’s Astara.
The Rasht-Astara, which is part of North-South Transport Corridor connecting Northern Europe with Southeast Asia, will serve as a transport link between railway networks of Azerbaijan, Iran and Russia.
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