A train was derailed from a track headed into Turkmenistan last week after someone removed more than 600 nuts and bolts holding the track in place, railroad officials said.
It wasn’t clear if this was a case of thieves stealing a valuable item or of saboteurs trying to cause trouble.
The state railroad said more than 70 passengers were on board the train that derailed Friday, but asserted that no one on board had been killed or injured, a remarkable outcome suggesting the train was traveling at a very slow speed.
The line from which the nuts and bolts were stolen was brand new. It was the new line going from Gorgan in Golestan province northward across the border into Turkmenistan at Incheh Borun and then up the eastern side of the Caspian through Uzbekistan and into Kazakhstan, where it will link up with lines into Russia and on to Europe.
The line was only formally opened for business August 4, a mere 10 days before the derailment.
Officials said the line would be closed for a week—not just for repairs, but also to allow time for a complete inspection of the line to the border.
Provincial railroad officials said the removal of the 600 nuts and bolts left 125 meters (400 feet) of track unmoored. Some analysts said that if the thieves were interested in the nuts and bolts and not sabotage, they would have tackled every third or fourth bolt and not an entire string that would unmoor a length of track.
A spokesman for the National Railway said the problem of stolen nuts and bolts exists in scattered parts of the country. The only way to defeat the problem is with trackwalkers who physically walk down a rail line and look to see that nuts and bolts are in place.
The spokesman didn’t say why nuts and bolts are commonly stolen or whether any other derailments have been reported in recent years.