UNESCO to visit Iran for inscription of domestic railway network as industrial heritage

Deputy Minister of Cultural Heritage, Handicrafts and Tourism Mohamamd Hassan Talebian announced on Sunday that UNESCO officials are to pay a visit to Iran to inscribe domestic railway network as the first industrial heritage site in the country.

“UNESCO assessors will pay a visit to Iran in September or early days of October to inscribe domestic railway network as a UNESCO industrial heritage site,” he said.

“North-South Railway, extended from Caspian Sea to the Persian Gulf, for about 1,400 kilometers, is a unique railway across the globe,” the officials added.

The Cultural Heritage, Handicrafts and Tourism Organization of Iran in close collaboration with the Islamic Republic of Iran Railways submitted to UNESCO a preliminary dossier titled “Trans-Iranian Railway” in 2017.

Later in 2018, the organization updated the dossier by providing additional information upon a request by the United Nations experts.

The industrial heritage, which dates from the World War I and II, contains expanded railway networks mainly stretched from south to north. It also includes a variety of monuments such as Tabriz railway station as well as Veresk and Sekhat-tala bridges built at hard-to-access points of deserts or highlands.

Such bridges are the first of their kinds in the country which were constructed based on modern technical and engineering calculations and from materials like metal and concrete.

From another point of view, it is deemed a turning point to comprehensive developments in Iran, catered to wide spectra of economical, commercial, social, cultural and even political aspects.