Railways, says that, average, "500 kilometers of railways have been laid in the country annually" since 2000. Currently they are laying 3,300 kilometers of track, including the 1,000 kilometer Bafq-Mashhad line, which, once finished, will cut by about 900 kilometers the existing track distance connecting Turkmenistan and the entire Central, Asia to the persian gulf via the Tajan-Mashhad-Bandar Abbas line.
Bandar Abbas is a well-developed Iranian port through which a growing amount of international cargo transaction is conducted. Another major line is a 400-kilometer line connecting the Caspian Sea to the Persian Gulf through the Tehran-Bandar Abbas line. Apart from their position as the main connecting ports between Iran and Russia, the Iranian Caspian Sea ports are becoming increasingly important for their role in expanding regional and international trade between the Caucasus, Central Asia and Russia.
Iran has an advanced land transportation infrastructure, the result of extensive investment since the early 1960s. Various high-quality, wellkept highways connect its major trading, mining and industrial regions to each other as well as to neighboring countries, but that includes few railways. Its main lines stretch less than 10,000 kilometers, extremely inadequate or a vast country of 1.64 million square kilometers. Especially since its major ports are along its 2,500 kilometer coastline with the Persian Gulf and the Oman Sea in the south and most of its populous and industrial regions
are in the north.
Apart from Iran's plan to expand its international trade, this rapid transport development is also part of a plan to expand economic relations with the newly independent neighboring Central Asian and Caucasian countries, and also with its main regional partner, Russia.
In particular, Iran's efforts to turn itself into the major transit route for the landlocked Central Asian countries as well as for the two landlocked Caucasian states, Azerbaijan and Armenia, require connecting road and railroads as well as expanding its domestic land transportation network. The idea of restoring the ancient Silk Road by connecting China's roads and railroads to Europe via its neighboring Central Asia and through Iran is another part of its ambition to expand trade.
Yet another factor has been Iran's membership in the Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO). Formed by Iran, turkey and Pakistan in the 1980s, the ECO was revitalized when, five Central Asian countries, Afghanistan and Azerbaijan, joined it after the soviet Union's fall. Iran's geography makes it the natural link, among all these countries, which are its neighbors
or which can access it through a land neighbor (Turkmenistan) or a sea neighbor (Kazakhstan) in the case of three Central Asian countries (Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan).
Finally, Iran's joint project with India and Russia to offer an alternative route for European-Asian trade to the one via the Suez Canal has been a factor. Their land/sea route is both shorter and cheaper.
To meet growing domestic and regional/international demand, Iran is expanding and modernizing its land and sea transportation networks to function as the main regional connecting state for long-term trade routes. Within this context, land transportation, and in particular railway construction, is a priority.
Iran is also building a 150-kilometer railroad connecting its eastern Khorassan province with Afghanistan's Herat province, through which it can access other parts of Afghanistan. Since that country borders Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, Iran can also access those Central Asian countries by a shorter link than the current one through Turkmenistan.
To that end, last June Iran signed trilateral agreements with each country and Afghanistan .Given Afghanistan's shared border with China, Iran is also considering offering its route to the Chinese,in search of a shortcut for their trade with the Middle East and Europe for which highways and railways would be required.
Iran's plans include connecting the Iranian railway network to Iraq and to its neighboring Syria, which would begin after