to sign a deal to build the world’s first intercity magnetic levitation train line, stretching from Tehran to Mashhad.
The project is expected to cost more than $8 billion, an immense sum that has discouraged others from building hi-speed magnetic levitation lines.
Critics of the idea have denounced the Islamic Republic for adopting just the kind of “prestige projects” the revolution ridiculed the monarchy for pursuing.
Magnetic levitation (or maglev) trains achieve very high speeds with very low friction. The trains do not use fossil fuels or even have an engine. They are propelled by a magnetic field that also levitates the train over a solitary rail.
Ali Kuhestanian, who has headed the investigation of the maglev project, announced the decision to sign a deal for the train. He did not say if Iran was ready to sign a full-fledged contract or, more likely, a memorandum of understanding to kick off the project.
In May 2007, Iran formally started looking at maglev by hiring a German engineering firm, Schlegel, to do a feasibility study. Nothing has been said since then until Kuhestanian announced the plans Friday to sign a “deal.”
Iran’s interest was first sparked in 2004 when the then economics minister of the German state of Bavaria, Otto Wie-shau, visited Tehran and talked up maglev. The firm that has the technology is a joint venture of Siemens and ThyssenKrupp. It has not said anything about any talks with Iran.
The world’s first maglev train began operating in 1983 between Britain’s Birmingham airport and the train station in Birmingham. The system proved unreliable and faced constant breakdowns. After a few years, it was shut down.
Siemens and ThyssenKrupp improved the technology and built a short demonstration line in Berlin the 1990s, but interest in Germany never took hold—and then died after a 2006 crash killed 23 people. The Germans then built a line between the Shanghai airport and downtown Shanghai. But the plans for an intercity maglev line drew stiff opposition in China and that proposal died.
If Iran really does go ahead with the 850-kilometere (525-mile) maglev line between Mashhad and Tehran, it will be far the longest maglev line in the world. With a speed of 450 kilometers per hour (280 mph), the train would take only two hours. There is a conventional train line now that links the cities. The speediest train takes 13 1/2 hours between the two cities, averaging less than 40 mph because of the many curves and inclines through the mountains.
Iran has marketed the idea chiefly as a way to speed pilgrims on their way to the Shrine of Imam Reza in Mashhad, the holiest site in the Islamic Republic.
In 2007, Iran said it was setting aside $1.5 billion to fund the initial steps for the line. Costs were then estimated at $8 billion. Iran said it wanted to join with private sector investors for the actual construction of the line.
Kuhestanian said Friday that representatives of Iran’s public and private sector would go to Germany to sign the deal. He did not identify the private investors.
At the time of the revolution, the opposition to the monarchy ripped into many of the Shah’s favorite schemes as mere “prestige projects” that would do little good for the country. In subsequent years, however, the Islamic Republic revived many of the Shah’s schemes and declared them essential. Among those canceled and then revived schemes have been the Tehran Metro, the super-highway cutting through the mountains from Tehran to the Caspian and the nuclear power program.
