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Iran opening key rail line to shorten travel time to Tabriz

Thursday, 08 June 2023 7:37 PM [ Last Update: Thursday, 08 June 2023 7:37 PM ]

US Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) (L) talks with Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) during a rally with fellow Democrats before voting on H.R. 1, or the People Act, on the East Steps of the US Capitol on March 08, 2019 in Washington, DC. (AFP photo)

Iran is to open a key rail line to shorten travel time between Tehran and the metropolitan city of Tabriz.

Iranian President Ebrahim Raeisi is to open a key rail line in the northwest of the country that will shorten travel time to the metropolitan city of Tabriz by several hours.

The official IRNA news agency said in a Thursday report that the 44-kilometer rail link between the cities of Bostanabad and the industrial town of Khavaran, located 29 kilometers from Tabriz, will come on line in a ceremony attended by President Raeisi on Friday.

The report said that the railway project is a major part of Iran’s East-West transport corridor and will play a key role in the country’s plans to accommodate larger volumes of international cargo transit.

It said the link is part of a larger line that connects the cities of Mianeh and Tabriz via rail, a project for which successive governments in Iran have allocated some 200 trillion rials ($400 million) in investment over the past 20 years.

Once it is fully finished, the Mianeh-Tabriz railway will shorten travel time via rail between the Iranian capital Tehran and Tabriz, a city of nearly 2 million, by four hours.

The complicated project has mostly relied on domestic resources, including for railway tracks that have been manufactured by Iranian steel mills.

The double-track railway passes through a 3-kilometer tunnel, the longest rail tunnel in Iran and a 1-kilometer arch bridge, again the largest in Iran’s railway network, said the report by the IRNA.

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