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Iraq
Railroads
Iraq possessed two separate railroads at independence, one standard
gauge and one meter gauge. The standard gauge line ran north from
Baghdad through Mosul to the Syrian border and to an eventual
connection with the Turkish railroad system, and the meter gauge
line ran south from Baghdad to Basra. Because the two systems
were incompatible, until the 1960s cargo had to be transloaded
at Baghdad to be transported between the two halves of the country.
The Soviet Union helped extend the standard gauge system to Basra,
and by 1977 fully 1,129 kilometers of Iraq's 1,589 kilometers
of railroad were standard gauge. By 1985 the total length of railroad
lines had been extended to 2,029 kilometers, of which 1,496 kilometers
were standard gauge. In 1985 the railroads were being traveled
by 440 standard-gauge locomotives that moved 1.25 billion tons
of freight per kilometer. A 252-kilometer line linking Kirkuk
and Al Hadithah was completed by contractors from the Republic
of Korea (South Korea) in 1987 after five years of work. Built
at a cost of US$855 million, the line was designed to carry more
than 1 million passengers and more than 3 million tons of freight
annually. The system included maintenance and control centers
and more than thirty bridges crossing the Tigris and Euphrates
rivers. By the end of the century, Iraq planned to triple the
line's passenger capacity and to double its freight capacity.
A 550-kilometer line, built by a Brazilian company and extending
from Baghdad to Qusaybah on the Syrian border, was also opened
in the same year. In 1987 Indian contractors were finishing work
on a line between Al Musayyib and Samarra. Iraqi plans also called
for replacing the entire stretch of railroad between Mosul and
Basra with modern, high-speed track, feeding all lines entering
Baghdad into a 112-kilometer loop around the city, and improving
bridges, freight terminals, and passenger stations. In addition,
Iraq has conducted intermittent negotiations over the years with
Turkey, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia concerning the establishment
of rail links to complete a continuous Europe-Persian Gulf railroad
route.
Data as of May 1988
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