Asia
- The Trans-Asian Railway is a project to link Singapore to Istanbul and is to a large degree complete with missing pieces primarily between Iran and Pakistan (under construction in 2005), and in Myanmar, aside from political issues. The project has also linking corridors to China, the central Asian states, and Russia. This transcontinental line unfortunately uses a number of different gauges, 1,435 mm (4 ft 8 1⁄2 in), 1,676 mm (5 ft 6 in), 1,520 mm (4 ft 11 5⁄6 in) and 1,000 mm (3 ft 3 3⁄8 in), though this problem may be lessened with the use of variable gauge axle systems such as the SUW 2000.
- The Zahedan connection opened in August 2008.
- The TransKazakhstanTrunk Railways project by Kazakhstan Temir Zholy will connect China and Europe at a gauge of 1,435 mm (4 ft 8 1⁄2 in). Construction is set to start in 2006. Initially the line will go to western Kazakhstan, south through Turkmenistan to Iran, then to Turkey and Europe. A shorter to-be-constructed 1,435 mm (4 ft 8 1⁄2 in) link from Kazakhstan is considered going through Russia and either Belarus or Ukraine.
- The Baghdad Railway connects Istanbul with Baghdad and finally Basra, a sea port at the Persian Gulf. When its construction started in the 1880s it was in those times a Transcontinental Railroad.
Read more about this topic: Transcontinental Railroad
Famous quotes containing the word asia:
“I have no doubt that they lived pretty much the same sort of life in the Homeric age, for men have always thought more of eating than of fighting; then, as now, their minds ran chiefly on the “hot bread and sweet cakes;” and the fur and lumber trade is an old story to Asia and Europe.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Incarnate devil in a talking snake,
The central plains of Asia in his garden,
In shaping-time the circle stung awake,
In shapes of sin forked out the bearded apple....”
—Dylan Thomas (1914–1953)
“I believe that the fundamental proposition is that we must recognize that the hostilities in Europe, in Africa, and in Asia are all parts of a single world conflict. We must, consequently, recognize that our interests are menaced both in Europe and in the Far East.”
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945)