“Kazakhstan’s national railway has agreed to spend more than a half-billion dollars to outfit its trains with hundreds of new “environmentally clean” diesel locomotives built by General Electric Co. GE said Thursday the national railway company, Kazakhstan Temir Zholy, will buy 310 new dual-cab locomotives between 2008 and 2012, in a contract worth more than $650 million.” ABC News (USA) Sep. 29/06

But what about the tracks for these American built locomotives to run on? If you have ever taken what is known as the Almaty-Astana “Spanish train” you will agree that it is very comfortable and as good as any train in Europe (better than most in North America); however, once it gets moving you can’t avoid the “kling clang” every few seconds as it runs on antiquated Soviet tracks.

The unverified story I heard was that the Spanish engineers told the Kazakh government that it cannot perform as designed on such tracks. It runs at something like 100km/hr (nothing special in train terms) while it is designed as a fast train.

Nonetheless, Kazakhs speak of it with pride like they do about the Bayterek tower in Astana. The ‘Spanish Train’ destroys the turtle speed of the other trains from the USSR period and brings a level of comfort new to Central Asian.

Lets not forget that the contract for these USA make locomotives coincided with the White House visit of President Nazarbayev.