DUSAHNBE, May 17, Asia-Plus - Specialists from Tajik Railways have worked out new investment projects providing access to other countries, Tajik Railways first deputy head Vladimir Sobkalov said telling the session of member nations of the Organization for Cooperation of Railways (OSZhD) in Dushanbe yesterday.  

According to him, these investment projects provide rail accesses to Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iran.  He noted that implementation of those projects would provide to the CIS states access to seaports on the Indian Ocean.  

“We have drafted a project for the construction of the branch-line from Kolkhozobod to Panji Poyon, which will be 75 kilometers in length as well as a project for the construction of new 95-kilometer line from Dushanbe to Vakhsh costing US$140 million,” the Tajik Railways official said.  

Sobkalov noted that the main shortcoming of Tajikistan’s railways is inconvenient structure of their sections.  “A total length of Tajik railways is 950 kilometers,” Sobkalov said, noting that ff them, 616.7 kilometers are its exploitation length.  “The point is that the Tajik railway consists of three separated branches parted by the Uzbek railways,” said Sobkalov, “It is impossible to travel from one section to another one without crossing lines of other railways administrations.”