myaroslav
Today, in the first Sunday of August, the Railroader's day is being celebrated in most 1520mm network states - my congratulations to everyone working in the industry! At this date I'll post some data on the third by length and the fastest developing in the 1520 gauge world Kazakhstan network, whith has grown by 20% from 13.1 to 15.7 thousand km during the thirty independent years. Its construction stages shown in the map can be divided into several stages. Red lines show the implementation of pre-revolution trans-desert line projects which made connections with southern populated areas and started the agricultural trade changing grain by cotton. Green and yellow lined soviet projects were targeted on coal and ore mines as well as new grain production areas in the northern parts. Finally, the violet lines are showing post-soviet development aimed to build efficient interconnected network and avoid transit routes passing through Russian territories. New routes being constructed today are shown in orange. The largest project is the third connection with China (and second tracks are being built at existing ones also). During the last decade, the amount of chinese export transported to Europe and bordering countries has doubled and reached 27 bln tons, which is equal to approximately 30 container trains a day. An interesting mix of modern rolling stock is also gathering here. This year three approximately equal contracts were signed with Russia, China and local factory assembling GEvos - as no one could supply the requested volume of diesel locos alone. Localised Alstom electric locomotives produced in the capital are steadily appearing at the network. Speaking about passeinger carriages, Russian Tver and Spanish Talgo cars production was also localized (the country is operating the second largest Talgo fleet after Spain; should mention some trainsets have enwidthened bodies according to larger loading gauge), and now new sleeping carriages by Stadler are waited in the next year. Modern wheel, fastener and point plats have been launched in the recent years, supplying not only local demand but also exporting parts abroad. May be not everything is being great - all these years the questions of inefficiency and corruption have been raised from time to time, followed by underfinancing and inability to modernize old infrastructure as fast as it was needed. Just one visible sign - I first seen a projector signal still used here in a old southern route recently. Last year the question of company's growing debt was actively discussed. Although the national company KTZ is holding the monopoly position, there are private freight carriers with as well as passenger carriage operators. The reform splitting infrastructure from rolling stock is being discussed currently. However, generally, considering growing demand, the intense development should be expected in the following years.
