PROJECT STARTED TO DEVELOP COUNTRY

Manawatu Times, Volume LIV, Issue 6843, 22 February 1929, Page 9

PROJECT STARTED TO DEVELOP COUNTRY

SYSTEM CALLS FOE CONSTRUCTION OF 800-MILE LINE, BUNDAR GAZ TO TEHERAN A beginning has been made on the southern section of the new Persian Tailway system, the construction of which was undertaken by a GermanAmerican syndicate. Twenty American engineers are at work in the Ahwaz district, the southern terminus of the line on the Persian Gulf. Between Khur Musa and Ahwaz more than 2000 labourers have been put to levelling off the roadbed of the prospective alignment. . Tho whole railway project, which has been described as “a monument to tho national spirit of Persia not less notable, and far more useful, than tho pyramids of Egypt, ” calls for the construction of a railway from Bundar G*az on the southern shore of the Caspian and from Khur Musa on the Persian Gulf to Teheran, a total distance of some 800 miles. The railway will have to run over salt swamps and endless expanses of soft mud, and when completed will have scaled a veritable sierra of limestone ranges nearly 8000 feet high. The total cost is estimated to be in the neighbourhood of £12,000,000, but may bo much more. “We expect to have trains running from Khur Musa, the new port on the Persian Gulf, to Teheran within five years, unless we strike some unexpected and unlikely obstacles, ” said Mr. Sheppard, the vice-president of tho TJlen Company, of New York, to a newspaper in Bagdad. “The Uleh Company with whom are allied French and British firms, have secured the contract for the construction of the southern portion of the new Persian railway, including the provision of rolling stock, and tho construction of tho new harbour at Khur Musa, which will be tho Gulf terminus of tho line. The railway contract awarded to the Glen Company provides for the construction of about 300 kilometers, but there is a possibility that their contract will be extended.’ ’

Mr. Sheppard paid tribute to the prompt manner in which the Persian Government is meeting the financial installments required for current work and he expressed tho view that no insurmountable difficulties would be met in the financing of the scheme. The cost of the railway is being met from the revenue derived from the Persian Government’s tea and sugar monopoly, and a very substantial reserve has already been accumulated. Mr. Sheppard said that tho new harbour would be a great asset to Persia. Except in the close vicinity of the shore tho depth of water is said to be satisfactory.