By APP,
London : Rail enthusiasts looking for adventure will be able to travel by train from London to Dhaka when a new link opens later this year.
The 7,000-mile Trans-Asia railway will follow one of the old Silk Roads through Istanbul, Tehran, Lahore and Delhi and the whole journey will take 23 days to complete, reports “The Sunday Times.”
It is already being described by train buffs as “the world’s greatest railway journey” and will be longer than the Trans-Siberian railway, which spans 5,772 miles, the paper added.
Under a United Nations-sponsored scheme, Pakistan and Iran will link up their lines in the coming months to join the sub-continent’s track to that of Europe for the first time.
The UN said the link would open up new trade routes within Asia and give the former Soviet republics of central Asia rail access to Iran’s strategic seaport at Bandar Abbas on the Gulf.
The route was extended when the Calcutta to Dhaka line reopened earlier this month, more than 40 years after it was blocked during the Indo-Pakistan war of 1965.
The paper said last week, senior Indian officials met their Iranian counterparts in Tehran to discuss progress. India has already earmarked 90 million pounds to extend its vast rail network towards its border with Burma. From there just 218 miles of missing track stands in the way of an overland rail journey from London to Singapore.
An intrepid traveller will soon be able to leave London for Brussels, Cologne, Vienna, Bucharest, Istanbul, Tehran, Quetta, Lahore, Amritsar, Delhi and Calcutta before reaching the end of the line in Dhaka.
Iranian engineers have extended their network through Kerman to the Pakistan border, where travellers will switch to a Pakistani train before continuing their journey to Quetta.
China, a big supporter of the project, is spending billions on extending rail lines to its Burmese border, the weekly said.
Rail enthusiast Mark Smith told the newspaper the journey offered a return to romantic overland adventure, despite some security concerns on the Iran-Pakistan border.
“If you have the time, a taste for adventure and can arrange the necessary tickets and visas, this promises to be a truly epic overland journey,” he said.