Trans–Asian railway

The project was initiated in the 1950s, with the objective of providing a continuous 8,750 miles (14,080 km) rail link between Singapore and Istanbul, Turkey, with possible further connections to Europe and Africa.

By the 1990s, the end of the Cold War and normalisation of relations between some countries improved the prospects for creating a rail network across the Asian continent.

The Trans-Asian Railway Network Agreement is an agreement signed on 10 November 2006,[2] by seventeen Asian nations as part of a United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP) effort to build a transcontinental railway network between Europe and Pacific ports in China.

[7] In 2003, the president of Kazakhstan proposed building a standard gauge link from Dostyk (on the Chinese border) to Gorgan in Iran; it has not yet been built.

[5] This leads to time-consuming interchanges or transloading to handle the break of gauge at main connecting points in the network.

Other standards to consider include allowing for interoperability: Transportation and railway ministers from forty one nations participated in the week-long conference[10] held in Busan, South Korea, where the agreement was formulated.

As part of the agreement, India will build and rehabilitate rail links with neighboring Myanmar in projects that are estimated to cost more than ₹ 29.41 billion (US$730 million).