A transcontinental railroad or transcontinental railway is contiguous railroad trackage, that crosses a continental land mass and has terminals at different oceans or continental borders. Such networks can be via the tracks of either a single railroad or over those owned or controlled by multiple railway companies along a continuous route. Although Europe is crisscrossed by railways, the railroads within Europe are usually not considered transcontinental, with the possible exception of the historic Orient Express. Transcontinental railroads helped open up interior regions of continents not previously colonized to exploration and settlement that would not otherwise have been feasible. In many cases they also formed the backbones of cross-country passenger and freight transportation networks. Many of them continue to have an important role in freight transportation and some like the Trans-Siberian Railway even have passenger trains going from one end to the other.
The Trans-Asian Railway(TAR) is a project to create an integrated freight railway network across Europe and Asia. The project is of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP).
The Eurasian Land Bridge, sometimes called the New Silk Road, is the rail transport route for moving freight and passengers overland between Pacific seaports in the Russian Far East and China and seaports in Europe. The route, a transcontinental railroad and rail land bridge, comprises the Trans-Siberian Railway, which runs through Russia and is sometimes called the Northern East-West Corridor, and the New Eurasian Land Bridge or Second Eurasian Continental Bridge, running through China and Kazakhstan. As of November 2007, about one percent of the $600 billion in goods shipped from Asia to Europe each year were delivered by inland transport routes.
A Bering Strait crossing is a hypothetical bridge or tunnel that would span the relatively narrow and shallow Bering Strait between the Chukotka Peninsula in Russia and the Seward Peninsula in the U.S. state of Alaska. The crossing would provide a connection linking the Americas and Afro-Eurasia.
The Islamic Republic of Iran Railways is the national state-owned railway system of Iran. The Raja Passenger Train Company is an associate of the IR, and manages its passenger trains. The Railway Transportation Company is an associate of the IR, which manages its freight transport. The Ministry of Roads & Urban Development is the state agency that oversees the IRIR. Some 33 million tonnes of goods and 29 million passengers are transported annually by the rail transportation network, accounting for 9 percent and 11 percent of all transportation in Iran, respectively (2011).
The 1,520 mm broad gauge Trans-Aral Railway was built in 1906 connecting Kinel and Tashkent, then both in the Russian Empire. For the first part of the 20th century it was the only railway connection between European Russia and Central Asia.
Alashankou is a border city in Bortala Mongol Autonomous Prefecture, Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, China. It is a port of entry by both railroad and highway from Kazakhstan as part of the Eurasian Land Bridge.
Qazaqstan Temır Joly is the national railway company of Kazakhstan.
The Northern East West Freight Corridor, usually referred to as the N.E.W. Corridor, is a project organized by the International Union of Railways UIC and Transportutvikling AS to connect the East Coast of the United States to East Asia by rail and maritime routes.
Dostyk or Druzhba is a small town in Kazakhstan's Jetisu Region, on the border with Xinjiang, China. It is a port of entry from China. The rail portion serves as an important link in the Eurasian Land Bridge. It is situated in the Dzungarian Gate, a historically significant mountain pass.
The Organisation for Co‑operation between Railways, is an organization established as the equivalent of the International Union of Railways (UIC) to create and improve the coordination of international rail transport. Concerning especially the transports between Europe and Asia, it has helped develop cooperation between railway companies and with other international organisations. The members of this organisation created an international transport law.
The International North–South Transport Corridor (INSTC) is a 7,200-km long multi-mode network of ship, rail, and road route for moving freight between India, Iran, Azerbaijan, Russia, Central Asia and Europe. The route primarily involves moving freight from India, Iran, Azerbaijan and the Russian Federation via ship, rail and road. The objective of the corridor is to increase trade connectivity between major cities such as Mumbai, Moscow, Tehran, Baku, Bandar Abbas, Astrakhan, Bandar Anzali, etc. Dry runs of two routes were conducted in 2014, the first was Mumbai to Baku via Bandar Abbas and the second was Mumbai to Astrakhan via Bandar Abbas, Tehran and Bandar Anzali. The objective of the study was to identify and address key bottlenecks. The results showed transport costs were reduced by "$2,500 per 15 tons of cargo". Other routes under consideration include via Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan.
Much of the influence of the Soviet Union can be seen in the infrastructure of Central Asia. Central Asia is a nexus of said infrastructure for transportation, goods delivery and energy distribution. Much of the industrial infrastructure had greatly declined in the 1990s, after the fall of the Soviet Union, especially in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. The roads, railroads and energy lines are thus oriented towards the Russian Federation and away from other regional neighbors, such as China, Afghanistan or Iran.
Turkmenistan has 4,980 kilometres (3,090 mi) of railways. The railway operator is the state owned company Türkmendemirýollary. The company belongs to the Ministry of Railways of Turkmenistan. Turkmenistan is currently expanding its rail system to cover 5,256.25 kilometres (3,266.08 mi) more distance, which will take its network to 10,236.25 kilometres (6,360.51 mi) track kilometres by 2025.
Rail transport is an important mode of long-distance transportation in China. As of 2024, the country had more than 159,000 km (98,798 mi)[a] of railways, the second longest network in the world. By the end of 2023, China had more than 45,000 kilometres of high-speed rail (HSR), the longest HSR network in the world.
The Railways Agency of Turkmenistan (Turkmen: "Türkmendemirýollary" agentligi, previously the Ministry of Railways, is a government agency in Turkmenistan responsible for oversight of the state rail corporation "Demirýollary" AGPJ.
The Košice–Vienna broad-gauge line was a proposed international project to extend the 1,520 mmRussian gauge (broad-gauge) railway line from the city of Košice in eastern Slovakia to Vienna and Bratislava. It would create an 8,000-kilometre (5,000-mile) rail transport corridor linking Western Europe and China.
The Yiwu–Madrid railway line is a railway route taken by container trains from the Chinese city of Yiwu to the Spanish city of Madrid, a distance of approximately 13,000 kilometres (8,100 mi), and the longest in the world. The Trans-Siberian Railway was previously the longest. It is one of several routes used by long distance freight trains on the "New Eurasian Land Bridge".
The Yiwu–London railway line is a freight railway route from Yiwu, China, to London, United Kingdom, covering a distance of roughly 12,000 km. This makes it the second longest railway freight route in the world after the Yiwu–Madrid railway line, which spans 12,874 km. It is one of several long-distance freight railway routes from China to Europe on the "New Eurasian Land Bridge" and part of establishing a modern-day Silk Road. The route was opened on 1 January 2017, making London the 15th European city to have a railway route connection with China, and takes 18 days to complete.
