Baku, Azerbaijan, Sept. 18
By Temkin Jafarov - Trend:
The Qazvin-Rasht-Astara railway, which is an integral part of the "North-South" international transport corridor, will be commissioned in early 2015, executive engineer of the railway construction project Farhad Kafi told Azerbaijani reporters who visited the Iranian province of Gilan.
"The total length of the Qazvin-Rasht-Astara railway is 205 kilometers, while the Anzali-Astara section - 164 kilometers," he said.
He said that six Iranian companies are building the railway. Each of them is responsible for their own section.
"The length of our railway section is 16.5 kilometers," he added. "Iranian specialists are building a bridge, carrying out the design and all kinds of construction work.".
The engineer said that 80 percent of the Qazvin-Rasht-Astara construction operations have been fulfilled. Its commissioning is scheduled for early 2015.
He also said that the construction of the Anzali-Astara railways section began.
Earlier, it was reported that the construction of the Qazvin-Rasht-Astara railway will be completed in March 2014. Around 22 tunnels and 15 bridges will be built throughout the railway. Around 15 tunnels have already been constructed.
The Qazvin-Rasht-Astara railway is part of the North-South Transport Corridor. Its aim is to integrate the main transportation lines of Azerbaijan, Iran and Russia. Investment worth $400 million is designated for the construction operations.
The volume of cargo transportation through the corridor will amount to 6 million metric tons in the initial stage and will reach 15-20 million metric tons in the future.