DUSHANBE, July 16, Asia-Plus — Tajikistan’s Railways seeks investors for the purchase of diesel locmotives, Vladimir Sobkalov, the deputy head of Tajik Railways, remarked at a news conference in Dushanbe on July 16.
According to him, China’s Siti (phonetically spelled), dealing with production of train cars and locmotives, has offered Tajikistan a number of diesel locmotives on the basis of crediting for the period of 25 years. “During this 25-year period, all enterprises of Tajik Railways should be pawned to the Chinese side,” said the railway official, “But this term is unacceptable for Tajikistan.” He added that Tajikistan is also negotiating with other companies, cinlduign the Chinese and Ukrainian ones, over the purchas eof dieasel locmotives
Tajikistan’s rolling-stock includes some 1,800 cargo cars, 342 passenger carriages and 57 diesel locomotives. Over the first two quarters of this year, the Tajikthe Railwways has repaired 5 diesl locomtives. “They have been repiared at the Tashknt carrige-building works in Uzbekistan,” Sobkalov said, adding that some 80 percent of the country’s rolling-stock has been repaired so far.
At present Tajik Railways offers three routes to the Russian Federation (Dushanbe-Moscow, Kulob-Moscow, Khujand-Saratov) and four domestic routes (Dushanbe-Konibodom, Qurghon Teppa-Konibodom, Dushanbe-Pakhtaobod and Qurghon Teppa-Kulob).
The total length of rails in Tajikistan is 950 kilometers; of that, 680 kilometers are the main railways. At present there are 31 railway stations in the republic.
