construction of a new rail line designed to open up the eastern side of the country. In this photo, explosives in the national colors are set off to start the construction. Such a tri-color blast was used a few months ago at another construction project and may have now become de rigueur. The new rail line will run 1,330 kilometers (825 miles) from Chahbahar on the coast of the Gulf of Oman northward through Zahedan, where it will link with the main national rail line, to Mashhad, where it will link up with the Central Asia rail system. The cost is estimated at $3.3 billion with completion in five years. A key goal is to make a major port of Chahbahar so that Iran can import more goods directly and no longer have to rely on Dubai, where huge ships now offload cargos onto small vessels that can go into Iran’s limited port space.
