Railroad Forums
Moderators: Komachi, David Benton
Iran's priority is to get good standard gauge connections to Turkey and Pakistan so that it can restore its importance as a center of (freight) trade routes.Note that Iran has built a link to Herat in Afghanistan, the first standard gauge rail line in Afghanistan. I am sure it will be freight only.
David Benton wrote:either that , or they just built it to annoy the Americans .The border west of Herat has only been there for a couple of centuries. Historically, the whole area is Persian speaking. Ismail Khan, the governor of Herat has close links with Iran, and bases his economy on commerce across the frontier. There are excellent reasons for a link. One can imagine an extension eastward through Mazar e Sharif and on to Badakhshan to connect with China's standard gauge network. I wouldn't expect passengers on any of these links.
David Benton wrote:for your other prosposed routes , i think it will be high speed freight , not high speed passengers that will be the driving force . asia to Europe , its surprising its not faster already .I read somewhere that the Trans-Siberian Railway was trying to cut the freight transit time from the Pacific Ports and China to Western Europe down. They advertise 12 days from Vostochny (near Magadan) to Berlin for express container trains now.
David Benton wrote:yes indeed ,they will compete alot more with faster trains . not only with shipping , but also with air freight . how can rail taking 7 - days or so compete with a 24 hour air service ???.Good points. I believe Russia is aiming for daily departures on its transcontinental container trains.
Well , it can't , not for cargo that actually needs to be shipped 1/2 way around the world in 24 hours . air freight will always win . but the fact is , alot ( maybe most ) air frieght doesnt really need to be there that quick . it goes by air ( or in some cases road ) because shipping and rail is so unreliable .catch the ship , and your shipment may get there in a month . miss the ship and it may be 3 months . rail would need to have daily departures , so the transit time becomes the actual trip plus a maxuim of 24 hours . a weekly train means you must add a week to the trip time in case your shipment misses its allocated train .
InterContinental Railway: All aboard the train from New York to Paris — via Siberia
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Both the Snowpiercer movie and series were based on Le Transperceneige, a French graphic novel from 1982. The ICR, on the other hand, is being proposed by engineers and entrepreneurs, who very much believe that it can and should become reality.
If it does, you’ll be able to take a train from New York to Paris, or from Vladivostok to El Paso. The ICR would create the physical conditions for centuries of “peace, progress, and prosperity,” as the project developers’ prospectus hopefully promises.
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For starters, the ICR would need nearly 5,500 miles (8,850 km) of entirely new railroad (the dotted lines on the map), from Yakutsk in eastern Siberia to Fort Nelson in northwestern Canada. And crossing the Bering Strait would involve building the world’s longest railway tunnel, 70 miles (113 km) long.
That’s more than double the length of the Seikan Tunnel connecting the Japanese islands of Honshu and Hokkaido, which at 33.5 miles (54 km) is currently the world’s longest underwater rail tunnel.
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On the other hand, the developers say the local geology means that the Bering Strait Tunnel would be “easier to construct than English Channel Tunnel.” Another bit of luck: the ventilation shafts needed for a tunnel of this length could conveniently be placed on the Diomede Islands, almost exactly halfway in the Bering Strait. (Big Diomede is Russia’s easternmost territory; Little Diomede is a few miles away and part of the U.S.)
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