The history of the construction of Tehran Urban and Suburban Railway Operation Company
Speaking about rail transportation for intracity commuting for the first time probably comes back to Naser al-Din Shah Qajar era. At that time, the concession of constructing urban trams, as a predicted subject, was considered in the response of the letter that Baron Julius de Reuter had written in 1872. However, this concession had been canceled before performing due to the Russians’ internal protests.
Around fifty years later, in 1927 and during his last trip to a foreign country, Naser al-Din Shah visited its traffic and wagons utilizing inside the city. These wagons were pulled by horses. He suddenly found out to enter such public transportation vehicle to Iran. He contracted with a Belgian company, and in a short time, they transferred the first rails and wagons to Tehran. These wagons were moved by two or four horses (depend on the routes slops) on 1m rails. Therefore, people could commute easily from Ray Gate to Bagh-e Shah (today known as Hor Square).
Although, planning for constructing today’s Tehran metro refers to 1971. On October 1974, studying and resolving traffic problems in Tehran metro by foreign consulting companies resulted in suggesting Highway metro system (with 7 lines). According to the studies, metro construction was determined as the most beneficial solution to improve traffic.
From 1977, French companies started executive works to construct metro line 1 in the north of Tehran (Shahid Haghani Highway). Metro executive operations continued till December 1980 including 2300m tunnel and part of the construction of 3 lines between Shahid Haghani Highway and Shahid Beheshti stations. But the agents of foreign countries leaved Iran at that time because of the war between Iran and Iraq. In the beginning of 1982, Council of Ministers announced the complete project cessation by foreign consultants. After the Speaker of Parliament, Hashemi Rafsanjani stated the metro construction necessity in Tehran, Council of Ministers Approved its implementation on April 1985. Then, Tehran metro construction restarted. Its first phase including the construction of line 1 (Mirdamad-Motahari), line 2 (Dardasht-Sadeghiyeh), and the intracity rout, line 5 (Tehran-Golshahr) was totally 90 km with 52 stations. The operational activities of the project launched in 1987.
A contract for supplying rolling stock was signed in 1995, according to fulfilling of construction activities. As the first Tehran metro line that connects Tehran to Karaj, line 5 opened at the end of March 7, 1999. Since then, a part of Tehran metro has been completed every year, as currently it has 126 active stations. From operation to the end of 2020, totally 9.252.950.809 trips have been done.
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