TEHRAN, Iran — Iran’s development of its rail sector has been slow for more than three decades. Since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, only 3,418 miles of railway have been built to extend the existing 2,796 miles of track.

A report released in January by the parliament’s Research Center said that the annual budget proposed by President Hassan Rouhani's government would increase allocations for the development of the rail sector by 12.8%, to about 21.26 trillion rials ($702.2 million at the official exchange rate) for the fiscal year ending March 20, 2017. The expansion of the rail budget, however, still appears to be far from sufficient. Addressing aging rail cars and other infrastructure deficiencies will requires billions of dollars in investment.

The Construction and Development of Transportation Infrastructure Company, under the Ministry of Roads and Urban Development, already lags behind regional and industrialized countries in terms of the length of the rail network and in cargo and passenger services. The company is still struggling to finish the 46 projects that were supposed to become operational by March 19 of this year. Thus, according to the Research Center report, the proposed budget for fiscal year 2016-17 is set to allocate 8.78 trillion rials ($290 million) for all the unfinished projects, and the remaining rail funds — about 12.48 trillion rials ($412.2 million) — will go toward a new electrified line project to connect Esfahan to Ahwaz.

Upon completion of the pending projects, Iran will have expanded its rail network to 7,456 miles. Meanwhile, it is also planning to double the network over the next decade and replace rolling stock that trundles along at 55 miles per hour with high-speed trains on electrified lines, an undertaking that Minister of Roads and Urban Development Abbas Akhoundi has said will require $28 billion to complete over five years.