Iran’s Roads & Transportation Ministry is inviting companies to submit bids by 15 June for the construction of a new railway line.

The planned railway line will run between Kermanshah and Khosravi in Kermanshah province, which is about 525 kilometres to the west of Tehran. The line will later be extended to Arak making it a total of 569km.

The successful company will carry out the work on an engineering, procurement, construction and financing (EPCF) basis. The scope of the project will cover the civil works, construction of track, communications, signalling and rolling stock.

The client on the project is the Construction & Development of Transportation Infrastructure Company. The local Metra Consulting Engineers has carried out the feasibility studies and design of the railway line. Metra also carried out the design of the monorail network in Qom, 150km south of Tehran.

Iran is keen to update its outdated railway network and there is already 4,000 kilometres of rail track currently being constructed across the country. The Transport Ministry is also planning to extend the existing 9,000km of railway that currently in use to 25,000km by 2015.

The expansion of Tehran metro is currently on hold due to a lack of financing from the government. In April, Mohsen Hashemi, head of the Tehran Urban & Suburban Railway Company resigned from his position following a disagreement with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.