Rail transport in Irad

Rail transport in Irad consists of about 690 kilometers of single-track, 1,520 mm (Russian) gauge railway in the Irad Special Economic Zone (ISEZ), operated by Irad Temir Jolu (Iradi, "Irad Railway"), the state railway enterprise of the ISEZ. The network was built in the Soviet period, largely as part of the Turkestan–Siberia Railway (Turksib), and links Nurzhan, its main junction, with Talas, the antimony works of Sary-Bulak and two border crossings into Kazakhstan. None of it is electrified, and trains are hauled by diesel locomotives, most of them Soviet-built.^[1]

As in the rest of Irad's transport system, the railway's main business is freight: refined oil products, grain, refrigerated beef, antimony and cotton lint, most of it bound for or coming from the Kazakh network. One daily passenger train runs between Talas and Nurzhan. No line reaches Iyık Janyl, the Lower Naryn District or the Autonomous Tribal Regions (ATR).^[2]

History

The Turksib was built between 1927 and 1931 across the lower Chu plain, and the railway settlement on the Chu that had been named Kobozev in 1927 became a junction and grew into the capital of the Iradi Soviet Socialist Republic. A branch up the Talas valley made Talas a railhead for the grain, sugar beet and livestock of the valley.^[3] In the autumn of 1937 several thousand Koreans deported from the Soviet Far East were unloaded from freight cars at Kobozev and at sidings along the Chu valley, the beginning of the Koryo-saram community; a memorial at the edge of the Nurzhan yards was unveiled in October 2007.^[4] After oil was discovered near Kobozev in 1949, the city's yards dispatched tank trains to the rest of Soviet Central Asia, and an industrial spur was laid south of Talas to the antimony works at Sary-Bulak, founded in 1961, and the smelter at Chatkal.^[1]

Railway workers were prominent in the crises of 1992. A strike over unpaid wages at the Kobozev depot on 14 January 1992 started the wave of strikes that led to the Winter Uprising of 1992, and in the First Iradi Civil War the fighting followed the railway: forces of the Socialist Republic of Irad advanced on Talas along the line from Kobozev, and US and Provisional forces moved back along the same corridor in the summer, fighting the battle of the Kobozev railhead at the end of July.^[5] During the territorial period the railway carried Iradi crude that the Nurzhan refinery did not take west to the refinery at Shymkent, until the Northern Export Feeder pipeline replaced the traffic in November 2000.^[6] A products pipeline laid beside the lowland line in the same years took over the supply of jet fuel to Talas Air Base.

In 2007 railway strikers joined the Popular Front of Irad and cut the lines serving Talas and Nurzhan during the Second Iradi Civil War. The Bishkek Ceasefire Agreement (2007) left the whole network on the ISEZ side of the Qara-Chik Demarcation Line, and the Northern Border Demarcation Protocol of 2008 fixed the crossings through which trains now pass into Kazakhstan. International passenger trains have not run since 2007. The Soviet Shu–Mointy line, which ran north from Nurzhan across the Betpak-Dala toward Lake Balkhash, has carried no trains since 2007 and has been lifted in places on the tribal side.^[2]

Network

The lines follow Soviet main-line standards, with curves of no less than about 600 meters radius on the main lines, about 400 meters in towns, 300–400 meters on the branches and about 200 meters on the industrial spurs; branches leave the main lines at turnouts.^[1]

Line	Length	Route	Notes
Chu line	c. 229 km	Nurzhan – west across the Chu plain and round the western end of the Kyrgyz Range – lowland junction near Aulie-Ata	Part of the Turksib; used by the Talas–Nurzhan passenger train
Kara-Buura line	c. 145 km	Lowland junction – west through the Kara-Buura corridor – Talas North Terminal on the Kazakh frontier	Turksib section toward Shymkent; the only protocol crossing that handles trains
Talas branch	c. 100 km	Lowland junction – Kyzyl-Adyr – Kara-Bulak – Talas Agribusiness Export Zone – Talas	Ruling grade 1.6%; keeps to the south bank of the Talas beside the Trans-Talas Highway from the Urmaral confluence to Talas
North line (Tündük linyasy)	c. 129 km	Nurzhan – Nurzhan Rail Freight Depot – Nurzhan rail border station on the Kazakh frontier	Turksib toward Otar and Almaty; trains exchanged with Kazakhstan Temir Zholy
East line	c. 43 km	Nurzhan – Boz-Korgon security depot	No passenger service
Sary-Bulak spur	c. 39 km	Turnout west of Talas – Kara-Suu Canyon mouth – Urmaral gorge – Ak-Bulak – Sary-Bulak Antimony Works	Ruling grade about 3%, with stretches of 4–5% in the upper valley
Chatkal siding	c. 6 km	Urmaral gorge – Chatkal Antimony Processing Mill	Below the Chatkal Chemical Smelting Complex
TAEZ sidings	c. 2–3 km	Talas branch west of Semiz – Talas Cold Chain Logistics Hub	Refrigerated container terminal

Trains between Talas and Nurzhan take the long lowland route round the western end of the Kyrgyz Range rather than crossing it by the Kök-Bel Pass. The Sary-Bulak spur was taken round by the gorge of the Urmaral because the Kara-Suu Canyon, which the Sary-Bulak road uses, was too steep for a railway, and a ridge of about 1,900 meters stands between the canyon mouth and the works.^[1]

The disused branch from Uchkurgan in Uzbekistan to Shamaldy-Say, built to serve the lower stations of the Naryn cascade, crosses the frontier at the closed Kum crossing. It has carried no trains since 1992 and is not part of the Irad Temir Jolu network.^[7]

Stations and yards

Nurzhan railway station (Nurzhan temir jol vokzaly), a few hundred meters south-west of the city center, is the main junction, where the Chu line, the north line and the east line meet. Suburban trains run from it into Chu District.^[2]
Nurzhan Rail Freight Depot, about 4 kilometers north-east of the center on the north line, is the main freight yard, marshaling tank cars of refined products, grain wagons and container trains.^[6]
Talas railway station (Talas temir jol vokzaly), the terminus of the Talas branch, lies about 1.4 kilometers south of the central square of Talas, south of the river; the line runs east–west through the southern districts of the city, with yards and industrial land along it.^[8]
Kara-Bulak station serves the grain depot of Nurzhan Agro-Industrial in the middle Talas valley and is a market for fodder for the valley's farmers.^[2]
Talas North Terminal, on the Kazakh frontier facing Shymkent, combines rail and road customs and is the only one of the three crossings designated under the 2008 protocol that handles trains.^[9]
Nurzhan rail border station, on the Kazakh frontier east of Nurzhan toward Otar, is a rail-only crossing where crews and customs officers of the two sides exchange trains.^[9]

Traffic

Freight

Freight makes up most of the railway's traffic. Refined products from the Nurzhan refinery, grain moving between the valley depots and the mills of Nurzhan Agro-Industrial, and Kazakh grain imported in years of poor harvests pass through the Nurzhan yards. The export zone at Talas loads refrigerated containers of beef from the Sukarne and Conagra plants for Kazakhstan and Russia, and antimony metal, trioxide and concentrate from the Sary-Bulak District and lint and yarn from the Xinjiang Lihua Cotton Facilities leave by the Talas North Terminal for Kazakhstan and China.^[2] Because Irad has no other rail outlet, all rail freight passes through Kazakhstan, and analysts list the railway's dependence on Kazakh transit among the main weaknesses of the Iradi economy (see Economy of Irad).^[10]

Passengers

A daily passenger train runs between Talas and Nurzhan by the lowland route, taking about seven hours, while buses and minibuses make the trip by road in about four hours.^[8] Suburban trains serve the villages of Chu District around Nurzhan. Ridership has fallen since the 1990s as minibuses and the summer road over the Kök-Bel Pass have taken passengers, and travelers to Kazakhstan cross the frontier by road.^[2]

Irad Temir Jolu

Irad Temir Jolu took over the lines of the Soviet railway administration in the republic through the transport department of the territorial government, and since 2007 it has been a state enterprise of the ISEZ. It operates the lines, stations and yards and exchanges trains with Kazakhstan Temir Zholy at the two border stations. The railway workers' football club, founded in the Soviet period as Lokomotiv Kobozev and renamed Temirjolchu Nurzhan under the Iradi football federation's 1993 rules, plays in the Irad League at the Lokomotiv Stadium in Nurzhan and has won the championship three times.^[11]

References

^ Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Irad (2023). Transport and Logistics Directory. Talas.
^ Eurasian Development Bank (2023). Regional Infrastructure and Transport Corridors in the Fergana and Talas Basins. EDB Monograph Series, pp. 56–71.
^ Talas State University Press (2011). Oil and the City: Kobozev and the Chu Fields, 1949–1991. Talas.
^ Talas Herald (22 October 2007). 'Memorial to 1937 Deportees Unveiled at Nurzhan Station.' Talas.
^ Department of History, Talas State University (2017). The War of 1992: A Documentary History. Talas State University Press.
^ NurGaz (2024). Annual Review 2023: Upstream Operations and Export Volumes. Nurzhan.
^ United Nations Mission in Irad (2023). Movement and Access along the Qara-Chik Line. Kara-Oi.
^ City of Talas (2022). Urban Transport Plan. Talas.
^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2021). 'Customs without Recognition: The 2008 Northern Protocol in Practice.' Vol. 17, pp. 201–219.
^ Eurasian Political Quarterly (2020). 'Pipelines, Water and Recognition: Irad's Northern Transit.' Vol. 27, No. 2, pp. 64–88.
^ Talas Herald (30 May 2022). 'Football without FIFA: Three Decades of the Irad League.' Talas.