Iran may buy locomotives from Russia

The head of the Iranian Railways Miad Salehi said that the company is discussing the terms of the purchase, writes Tehran Times. He, together with Transport Minister Rostam Gasemi, visited Moscow at the end of April and met with Russian Railways head Oleg Belozerov and Transport Minister Vitaly Savelyev.

As part of the negotiations, to expand cooperation between the countries in the field of transport, an agreement was signed, informs Railway Supply magazine, citing rollingstock.

The Iranian media indicate a huge fork in the potential supply volumes – 200, 1300 and 2000 vehicles. Portal tejaratnews writes that the most current confirmed figure is the purchase of 1 300 locomotives. In December 2021, the Minister of Economic Development of Iran, Ehsan Khanduzi, spoke about 200 locomotives in an interview with the IRIB news agency: he reported that negotiations on the provision by the Russian side of a loan in the amount of $5 billion were underway. It would finance the implementation of the North-South transport corridor project and the purchase of a traction rolling stock composition.

Deliveries of Russian locomotives to Iran were discussed earlier. For example, in 2016-2017, it was discussed about the prospective deliveries of 40 electric locomotives under a loan granted to Iran for the implementation of a joint project with RZD International for the electrification and modernization of the Garmsar-Inche Burun line. However, it was never implemented, and in April 2020, Russian Railways officially announced the suspension of work on it and the closure of a branch in Tehran.

It is worth noting that in 2016, at meetings with the Russian side, Vice President of Iranian Railways Babek Ahmadi said that in the coming years the country would need 1 000 locomotives, 27 000 freight and 3 000 passenger cars. Also, for a long time, the list of import requests prepared by the Russian Ministry of Industry and Trade and regularly published on the Torgpred channel included a lot from Iran for the supply of 2 000 metro cars with partial localization in the country.

In recent years, Germany’s Siemens and CRRC have received significant contracts for locomotives in Iran. Thus, since 2010, Siemens has produced 150 IranRunner locomotives for passenger transportation, and in 2016 CRRC received a contract for the supply of 15 passenger and 15 freight locomotives.

Photo: Rolling stock in Iran, 2017, farrail.net

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