Nevertheless, the governments want to make it happer, and this year:

Railway Gazette: A long way to go

...following the announcement in June that the Bam - Zahedan line in southeast Iran had been completed, the first international freight train ran over this route in August.

On August 14, Pakistan's Prime Minister Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani marked the country's national day by flagging off an inaugural container train from Islamabad to Tehran and Istanbul via Zahedan. Expected to take 15 days, the train was operated under the auspices of the regional Economic Co-operation Organisation.

Originally established in 1985 by Pakistan, Iran and Turkey, ECO later expanded to encompass seven Central Asian states. It is actively promoting the operation of other long-distance container trains across the region, including Almaty - Bandar Abbas and Istanbul - Urumqi.

Although the initial train from Islamabad was a demonstration run, it carried 20 containers with 750 tonnes of freight. PR General Manager Saeed Akhtar is confident that there would be sufficient traffic for a regular service linking Lahore or Faisalabad to Istanbul.

Only a few hundred km gap was left at the end of Soviet times, which was closed recently. However, for China traffic, the branchline across Mongolia would have to be electrified. Which might happen: Mongolia recently started a rail upgrade and expansion programme, including long new lines.

Given that rail can compete with shipping only on time, what matters now is line upgrades and managing signalling and dispatching thus that freight trains can pass fast. Russian Railways RZD is quite serious about its Trans-Siberian in seven days programme.

_{*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

So from the shipping cost viewpoint perhaps ships are more efficient, but it doesn't take much rail infrastructure to ship lots of freight...