Iran’s transport minister has confirmed that the country is moving closer to finalizing an agreement with China for the development of a high-speed railway linking the capital, Tehran, to Mashhad, Iran’s second-largest city.
Farzaneh Sadegh announced that the Chinese investor is expected to formalize the Tehran-Mashhad high-speed rail contract during President Masoud Pezeshkian’s upcoming visit to Beijing.
The government aims to cut the travel time on the 900-kilometer stretch between Tehran and Mashhad. It is one of the most busiest railway lines in West Asia, transporting tens of millions of passengers annually, most of whom are pilgrims.
Mashhad, with a population of 3.5 million, contains Imam Reza (AS) shrine, who is the eighth Imam of the Shia school of thought. Its location along the Sarakhs-Razi corridor reinforces its position as an east-west cargo transit hub, promoting the increasing flow of cargo through Iran to and from Central Asia.
In July, Iran’s railway authority confirmed plans to electrify almost 1,000 kilometers of track from Sarakhs to the Razi border crossing with Iraq. The initiative, supported by a Chinese company, also includes sections of double-tracking. According to Jabbar Ali Zakeri, the project is designed to expand rail freight capacity on the corridor to 15 million metric tons annually.
Iran’s broader plan to modernise its railroads with the high-speed railway comes at a timely moment with the effort to expand east-west transport links. These efforts are part of the nation’s bid to capture more revenues from transit cargoes, particularly in the framework of China’s One Belt, One Road initiative, which is redrawing transport infrastructure across Asia, Europe, and Africa.
