Railways: A crucial meeting next week to determine linking point with Europe

Baghdad-INA  
 The General Company for Railways announced today Sunday its measures regarding the railway linking with Europe, while clarifying the details of the five-year plan.
The Director General of the Iraq Railways Company, Talib Jawad Al-Husseini, said, in a statement to the Iraqi News Agency (INA), that "the railways was seriously damaged, especially in the liberated areas, from Daesh terrorist gangs."
He explained, "The efforts of the engineering and technical staff restored the 66 km Baghdad-Fallujah line, as well as high coordination with the Governor of Anbar to rehabilitate the destroyed bridges, where the completion rate reached 70 percent, in addition to rehabilitating the Baghdad-Bayji line for the purpose of transporting oil derivatives from al-Sumoud refinery in Baiji, and the work included the Qayarah refinery and Hammam Al-Alil,” noting that “the railways began constructing alternative railways at a temporary station after the Mosul train station was completely destroyed,” noting that “the line is currently ready for the movement of goods trains.”
He added, "There is high coordination with the Ministry of Transport assigning an international company after obtaining the approval of the Council of Ministers to study and prepare designs for the development of the railway network."
And he indicated, "The railways are serious about the pace of rail linking with Europe through Turkey, and there is a meeting at the end of this month with the Turkish technical and engineering staff, in addition to the staff of the Kurdistan region, for the purpose of determining the connection point with Turkey," explaining that "this project comes in conjunction with the start of establishing a great port of Faw ".
 
He pointed out that "the five-year plan for railways is subject to obtaining financial allocations, and includes the implementation of the hanged train project that connects Rusafa with Karkh, with a length of 22 km, as well as Karbala - Musayyib - Najaf - Samawah project, the arc line, which aims to transport passengers' goods within the middle Euphrates and append it in the south, center and north, as well as the hanged train project between the governorates of Najaf and Karbala, for transporting passengers.