Chapter 3: Belt and Road Initiative

This article from the South China Morning Post covers the Iran-China railway link between Almaty in Kazakhstan through to Tehran in Iran. At the time this was published, I assume 2017, it had been a year since the first the first freight train connecting Iran and China ran through neighbouring countries Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan in February of 2016. Traveling along the Silk Road taking only 14 days it provided a quicker route than ships between the two countries.

The arrival of this train in less than 14 days is unprecedented,” said President of the Railways of the Islamic Republic of Iran (RAI), Dr Mohsen Pour Seyed Aghaei. “The time spent by this train” to reach Tehran “has been 30 days shorter compared with the maritime route, which starts from China’s Shanghai port and ends in Iran’s Bandar Abbas” port city, Dr Pour Seyed Aghaei noted. He added, "This is an important step for the revival of the Silk Road and the train has travelled 700 km per day, saving 30 days compared to normal time that takes to go this distance.”

Part of this route towards Europe became a "life channel" during the COVID-19 pandemic as it required fewer health checks than road transport since the train uses local crews in each country. Halting flights and increasing maritime freight prices put this rail alternative in a good spot.

Interestingly, the UIC in another article.

It's clear there's a lot of activity in this area I'm not familiar with but it is interesting to learn more.