Trans-Iranian railway connects India to USSR

In OTL, in Aug 1941 Britain and the Soviet Union invaded Iran and built some railways, mostly from the coast to the USSR border.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Iranian_Railway#British_and_Soviet_operation_1941.E2.80.9342

In September 1941 the Allies took over operation of the Trans-Iranian Railway: British and Empire Royal Engineers (RE) commanded by Brigadier Godfrey D. Rhodes operating the Southern Division between Tehran and the port of Bandar Shahpur on the Persian Gulf and the Soviet Army operating the Northern Division between Tehran and the port of Bandar Shah on the Caspian Sea.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_Republic_of_Iran_Railways#World_War_II

The British built a 121-kilometre (75 mi) branch line from the 2,953-foot (900 m) bridge over the Karun River in Ahwaz to a new southern port at Khorramshahr on the Shatt al-Arab river. In 1943 3,473 American soldiers of the Military Railway Service began running trains between the Persian Gulf and Caspian Sea using ALCO RS-1 locomotives rebuilt with 3-axle trucks and designated RSD-1.

ITTL, the British and Russians are more ambitious, and the Royal Engineers are ordered to connect Quetta India (Pakistan) to Zaheda, Iran and then from Zaheda to Jolfa, USSR and onwards.

Pakistan_Railways_Network_Map.png


842px-Transiran_railway_en.png
 
None immediately spring to mind, however if the USSR and India were to build a trans Iranian route, the ramifications would be pretty big.
I agree. For starters, do Britain and the USSR carve up Iran to secure the rail route? This reaches back to the Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Russian_Entente

Does this railway to through Iran to Pakistan have any use to post-1947 USSR? If Russia takes over western Iran as part of the 1941 move with Britain, could a post-war Caspian to Red Sea canal be possible?

4d34d189b010bcbd34536218b9fb4da2.jpg


http://www.fort-russ.com/2016/04/russian-iranian-canal-could-connect.html
 
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There is the break of gauge problem again. The Indian railways are 1,676 mm (5 ft 6 in) and the Iranian railways are 1,435 mm (4 ft 8 1⁄2 in).
 
The RE will fix that. But we've still got gauge issues at the USSR border presumably.
Yes I'd forgotten about that and IIRC the former USSR the biggest loading gauge in the world IIRC too.

According to that reliable organ Wikipaedia...
The primary region where Russian gauge is used is the former Soviet Union (CIS states, Baltic states and Georgia), Mongolia and Finland, with about 225,000 km (140,000 mi) of track. Russian gauge is the second most common gauge in the world, after 1,435 mm (4 ft 8 1⁄2 in) standard gauge.
 
Also from Wikipaedia
Links to Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan

Feasibility studies were started on Khorramshahr–Basra and Kermanshah-Baghdad links with Iraq. As of 2014 the Iranian line to Khorramshahr was finished, but construction had not started on the track from the Iraqi border to Basra.

A Afghanistan - Mashhad-Khvaf-Islam Qala railway is being constructed by an Iranian firm (the line inside Afghanistan is funded by the Afghan government.
If you are having the British and Russians be more ambitious I suggest that they do both of the links to Iraq.

For a reason why, I can give two. The first is that it connects with the Berlin-Baghdad Railway. Second have the Bagdad to Haifa Railway proposed in the late 1920s built in the 1930s then you also have a connection with the standard gauge railway from Haifa to Egypt.
 
Does this thread compliment the India-Singapore Railway Completed 1925 thread, which you started about a year ago? If you have then this thread creates a London to Singapore railway once the Channel Tunnel is built, although the route does suffer from 2 breaks of gauge.
 
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