Contracts worth $245 million have been signed by the Afghanistan government for the design of a new railway, a 737 km railway between Kandahar and Herat. The railway is part of a proposed ring which circles the huge mountain range that lies in the middle of the country. The design of the Herat-Kandahar railway is expected to take around eight months.
At Herat, in the western part of the country, Iran is finishing a railway connecting the city with the Iranian railway network. From Kandahar there have been discussions to build a railway to Spin Boldak on the Pakistani border, where a railway could extend into the railway network of Pakistan.
Since Afghanistan lies across the path between Central Asia and the Indian Ocean, landlocked Central Asian countries, including Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and Kazakhstan are eager for a corridor through Afghanistan to be constructed. In this regard Turkmenistan has proposed to support a railway between Herat and Torghundi on the Afghan-Turkmenistan border. In the summer of 2024, Kazakh, Turkmen, and Afghan authorities met to discuss a rail corridor through Afghanistan, from Torghundi and along the Herat-Kandahar axis. Turkmenistan already has an agreement with Afghanistan on the construction of a logistics center in Torghundi.
There are also proposals to build a railway from Herat to Mazar-i-Sharif in the northeast along the above-mentioned ring. At Mazar-i-Sharif, there already is a railway that leads north into the railway network of Uzbekistan.
To complete the above-mentioned ring on the eastern side of the country, relevant circles are discussing building a Termez-Mazar-i-Sharif-Kabul-Peshawar railway, which would connect into the Pakistani railway network.
Kazakhstan has floated the idea of providing rails to Afghanistan earlier, and has agreed to establish a joint venture with Uzbekistan to help build rail infrastructure in Afghanistan.
Kabul is also interested in functioning as a transit country for freight from China.
In this regard the proposed Afghan network would become part of the so called Five Nations Railway Corridor connecting China on one end and Iran on the other, over a total distance of 2,100 kilometers (1,300 miles), traversing the countries of the Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, and Afghanistan in the process.