IOR/L/PS/12/3409

Reports submitted by British officials in Persia [Iran], along with newspaper cuttings from the British press, relating to construction work on the Trans-Persian Railway, intended to run from Bandar Shah [Bandar-e Torkaman] in the north of the country, to Bandar Shapur [Bandar-e Emam Khomeyni] at the head of the Persian Gulf. The papers focus on foreign and British investments and activity in the construction of the railway:

• Completion of construction of the line between Bandar Shah [Bandar-e Torkoman] and Aliabad by a German syndicate in 1931, and its handing over to the Persian Government.
• The appointment in 1933 of a Danish-Swedish syndicate, Kampsax Aktieselskab, to undertake construction of the remaining north and south section of the Trans-Persian Railway.
• The purchase of British locomotives, manufactured by Beyer, Peacock & Co. by the Persian State Railway.
• Suspension of construction work on the southern section of the line in 1934, due to a lack of funds.
• Actions of the Persian Government to fund railway construction, including the French text of a supplementary budget law for the Iranian year 1314 (equivalent to the Gregorian year 1935) on folio 27.
• The opening of the Trans-Persian Railway (now referred to as the Trans-Iranian Railway) in 1938.
• A report from the Secretary to the Government of India, External Affairs Department (Lieutenant-Colonel William Rupert Hay), dated 29 May 1940, referring to the line’s strategic significance in wartime (ff 4-5).

The majority of the file’s correspondence is sent from the British Legation at Tehran (Hughe Montgomery Knatchbull-Hugessen; Nevile Montagu Butler; Horace James Seymour).