Latest Afghan rail news
All the latest rail news from Afghanistan
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NewsTurkmenistan – Afghanistan rail link to be extended
AFGHANISTAN: Work has been launched to enhance the Towraghondi freight terminal on the border with Turkmenistan and extend the 1 520 mm gauge rail link to Sanobar in Herat province. A ceremony was held on September 11 to launch work on the US$40m enhancement project after ...
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NewsAfghan railway extension surveys underway
AFGHANISTAN: The Afghanistan Railway Authority has announced that surveys have been completed, are underway or will be commissioned for a series of railway extension projects. On May 6 AfRA said an initial survey had been completed for a long-proposed 96 km railway from the city of ...
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NewsTrans-Afghanistan Railway agreement signed
ASIA: Officials from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Uzbekistan have agreed the route for the proposed Trans-Afghanistan Railway, which is being planned as joint initiative between the three countries to promote regional connectivity and provide Central Asia with access to Pakistan’s seaports. The protocol was signed at a ...
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NewsAfghanistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and China to trial multimodal freight corridor
ASIA: Representatives of the railways of Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and China have agreed to trial a rail and road ‘economic corridor’ linking the four countries. An agreement for the three-month trial was signed on September 9 at the end of a two-day meeting in Toshkent. Containerised ...
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NewsSix policy reforms to strengthen railways in Central Asia
ASIA: An Asian Development Bank assessment of the state of railways in the 11 countries of the Central Asia Regional Economic Co-operation Programme has set out six reforms that ADB believes are needed to make rail more efficient and financially sustainable. The CAREC area covers Afghanistan, ...
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NewsTrans-Afghanistan railway survey finds no technical problems with route
AFGHANISTAN: A preliminary field survey has identified no technical problems with the proposed route for a 780 km trans-Afghanistan railway which would link Uzbekistan with Kabul, Jalalabad, the border with Pakistan and Peshawar. The proposed railway is a joint initiative by Uzbekistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan which ...
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NewsSome trains still running amid Taliban takeover
AFGHANISTAN: Newly-appointed head of the Ministry of Public Works Rumi Bakht-ur-Rehman Sharafat held an initial meeting with ministry staff and the Afghanistan Railway Authority on August 21 following the Taliban’s takeover of the country. The acting minister said the Taliban leadership was committed to the rehabilitation ...
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NewsChinese freight arrives in Hairatan
AFGHANISTAN: The first shipment of Chinese commercial and transit goods to arrive in the current solar year was delivered to the commercial port of Hairatan on July 11, having been moved by rail from Urumqi via Uzbekistan. According to the Ministry of Commerce, the train organised by ...
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NewsRailway opening forges ‘bonds of friendship’ between Afghanistan and Turkmenistan
AFGHANISTAN: ‘Those who thought that building a network of railways in Afghanistan was impossible need to reconsider their perspective’, said President Ashraf Ghani during the inauguration of the line from Aqina on the Turkmen border to the northern town of Andkhoy on January 14. ...
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NewsTwo presidents inaugurate Afghanistan – Iran railway
AFGHANISTAN: The country’s first standard gauge railway, which links Herat province with Khaf in eastern Iran, was formally inaugurated with a ceremony on December 10. Afghanistan’s President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani and Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani participated by video conference because of the coronavirus ...
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NewsFirst Iran to Afghanistan freight train
AFGHANISTAN: A trial freight train delivered more than 400 tonnes of cement from Iran to Rosnak in Herat province on December 2, ahead of the ceremonial inauguration of the newly completed railway which is scheduled for this month. A passenger train also carried Iranian railway officials to ...
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NewsCentral Asia transport strategy for 2030
ASIA: The Central Asia Regional Economic Co-operation programme has published its Transport Strategy 2030, building on lessons learned from the Transport & Trade Facilitation Strategy 2020. According to CAREC, 1 800 km of railway was built in the period covered by that strategy. ...
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NewsAfghans visit high speed rail training centre
AFGHANISTAN: Staff from the Ministry of Transport recently travelled to China to be trained in railway management, signalling and operations. This included a visit to a high speed rail training centre. The Afghanistan Railway Authority said the engineers had acquired a wealth ...
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NewsHerat province railway construction contract signed
AFGHANISTAN: A contract for the design and construction of the first phase of the fourth section of the railway being built to link Khaf in Iran with Herat province has been signed by the Afghanistan Railway Authority and Kazak company Integra Construction. The ...
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NewsAfghanistan – China rail freight service sets off
Afghanistan AFGHANISTAN: An inaugural service carrying freight for export to China by rail left Hairatan in northern Afghanistan on September 5, carrying 1 100 tonnes of talc in 41 containers. The train crossed the Soviet-built road-rail Friendship Bridge over the Amu Darya into Uzbekistan. The containers ...
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NewsAfghanistan approves fourth section of Khaf – Herat railway
AFGHANISTAN: Design and construction of the 43 km first phase of the fourth section of the railway being built from Iran to Herat was approved by the National Procurement Commission at its meeting on February 18. The 1 435 mm gauge line is being built in four sections. Work has ...
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NewsADB grant to help CAREC countries move from landlocked to land-linked
ASIA: The Asian Development Bank has awarded a US$2m regional technical assistance grant to support the development of railway strategies and institutional capabilities in the Central Asia Regional Economic Co-operation countries. CAREC comprises Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, China, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan and six multilateral institutions. ...
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NewsAfghan railway terminal expansion MoU signed
AFGHANISTAN: A memorandum of understanding for the development of the freight terminal at Aqina on the Afghan-Turkmenistan border, including the construction of 10 track-km of main line and sidings, was signed by the Afghanistan Railway Authority and Turkmenistan’s Ministry of Railways in Ashgabat on November 2. The MoU has six ...
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NewsTajikistan – Afghanistan railway construction could start this year
ASIA: Design work has been completed and Tajikistan could begin construction of a cross-border rail link to Afghanistan by end of 2018, the Afghanistan Railway Authority said on July 16. An ARA team led by Chief Executive Mohammad Yamma Shams recently travelled to Tajikistan to discuss the project, and technical ...
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NewsUzbekistan backs Afghan rail proposal
AFGHANISTAN: Uzbekistan has pledged to provide US$500m to part-fund the construction of a 657 km railway from Mazar-i-Sharif to Herat, Afghanistan’s Ministry of Finance said following an international conference on Afghanistan held in Toshkent on March 26-27. The proposed line would be an extension of the existing 75 km route ...