Rail transport in Afghanistan
Other than two short cross-border lines from the north, there are no functioning railways in Afghanistan today. Railways were planned, and at least one was built but is now dismantled.
History
Kabul tramway
In the 1920s, King Amanullah bought three small steam locomotives from Henschel of Kassel in Germany, and these were put to work on a 7 km roadside tramway linking Kabul and Darulaman. The tramway closed (date unknown) but the locomotives still exist at Kabul museum in Darulaman.[1]
Proposed railways
Over the last century and a half, plenty of proposals have been made about building railways in Afghanistan. As early as in 1885, the New York Times wrote about plans for connecting the Russian Transcaspian Railway, then under construction, with British India via Sarakhs, Herat, and Kandahar. When completed, the project would allow British officers to travel from London to India, mostly by rail, in 11 to 12 days (crossing the English Channel, the Black Sea, and the Caspian Sea by boat).[2]
About 1928, proposals were put forward for a railway to link Jalalabad with Kabul, eventually connecting to the (then) Indian system at Peshawar. Lines to join Kabul with Kandahar and Herat would follow later. Owing to political upheavals these plans were not implemented.
Industrial railways
In the 1950s a hydroelectric power station was built at Sarobi, east of Kabul. Three Henschel four-wheel 600 mm (1 ft 11+5⁄8 in)-gauge diesel hydraulic locos built in 1951 (works numbers 24892, 24993, 24994) were supplied to the power station.
In 1979 mining and construction locomotive builder Bedia Maschinenfabrik of Bonn supplied five D35/6 two axle diesel-hydraulic 600 mm (1 ft 11+5⁄8 in)-gauge locomotives, works numbers 150-154, to an unknown customer in Afghanistan.
The fate of these locomotives is unknown.
Rail gauge
The choice of future rail gauges in Afghanistan presents several difficulties. Afghanistan is the cross-roads of Asia and yet is almost completely without railways.[3]
There is less than 25 kilometres of railway inside the country, all of which is built to 1520 broad gauge. For strategic reasons, past Afghan governments preferred to discourage the construction of railways which could aid foreign interference in Afghanistan by Britain or Russia.[3]
Iran to the west uses standard gauge, 1435 , as does China to the east; to the south, Pakistan uses 1676 gauge, while to the north, the central Asian republics of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan use 1520 gauge.
Railway stations
There are currently no passenger services or stations in Afghanistan. If any of the various cross-border links are completed and opened to passenger service, new stations would have to be built.
Current railways and future plans
Turkmen and Uzbek borders
A 10 kilometer long line extends from Serhetabat in Turkmenistan to the town of Towraghondi in Afghanistan. An upgrade of this Soviet-built line began in 2007.[4]
A second 1520 gauge line, also built by the USSR, extends for around 15 kilometers from Termez in Uzbekistan to Kheyrabad Port, crossing the Amu Darya on the road-rail Friendship Bridge.[5]
A 75 kilometer (47 mile) extension line between Afghanistan and Uzbekistan began in January 2010, which is expected to be completed by the end of that year.[6] The line from Hairatan freight terminal to Mazar-i-Sharif is being built by Uzbekistan’s national railway Uzbekiston Temir Yullari.[7][8][9]
Iranian border
The nearest railhead in Iran is a 1435 standard gauge freight line which terminates at Mashhad.[10] This line is currently being extended 202 kilometers east to Herat.[11][12] On April 17 2007 Afghan Foreign Minister Rangin Dadfar Spanta said that the executive operations of the Khaf-Herat railway (freight only) project had begun in 2006.
Pakistan border (graded routes)
Two broad gauge 1676 Pakistan Railways lines with steep gradient terminate on the border at Chaman and Torkham. Various proposals exist to extend these lines on to Spin Boldak (1222m)/Kandahar (1000m)/Serhetabat (in Turkmenistan, connect with 1520 line)[9] and Kabul (1790m)/Mazar-i-Sharif (connect with 1520 line) respectively. In July 2010, Pakistan and Afghanistan signed a Memorandum of understanding for going ahead with the laying of rail tracks between the two countries. Work on the proposed project is set to start in the next four months. The rail tracks would link Balochistan, Pakistan's capital of Quetta to southern Kandahar province through the Khojak Pass and Chaman, and Peshawar, Pakistan, to Jalalabad through the Khyber Pass and Torkham. Discussing the agreement, "Pakistan's Minister of Railways Ghulam Ahmad Bilour [said] the costs of the rail project would be shared by the two countries. The long-awaited Afghanistan-Pakistan Transit Trade Agreement (APTTA) would be finalised in a few months, he assured. ... [A] senior official of Pakistan's Commerce Ministry said his country would lose a $2 billion market by allowing the transportation of Indian goods to Afghanistan. The issue of smuggling remained the focus of discussions, with the Afghan team insisting the problem should be tackled [in] APTTA." The meeting, held in Islamabad, was hosted by Minister of Finance and Economic Affairs Dr. Abdul Hafeez Shaikh; the visiting delegation was led by his Afghan counterpart Omar Zakhilwal.[13]
Northern corridor
In May 2010, Afghanistan's Minister of Mines set out plans for a major new standard gauge rail corridor across northern Afghanistan; from Sher Khan Bandar (near the Tajik border), via Naidabad where it would connect with the broad-gauge line from Uzbekistan (under construction), and then through Mazar-i-Sharif to Herat. At Herat, it would connect with the planned line from the Iranian border.[14]
Other border links
There are no rail links to China or Tajikistan, though a connection to the latter was proposed in 2008.[15]
See also
Sources
- ^ Kabul to Darulaman railway, Railways of Afghanistan
- ^ "To India In Eleven Days.; Russia's Transcaspian Railway And The Time Necessary To Complete It", The New York Times, 1885-05-03
- ^ a b Railways in Afghanistan, past and future
- ^ "Afghan rebuild underway". Railway Gazette International. 2007-07-12.
- ^ "Aid train reaches Afghanistan". Railway Gazette International. 2002-01-01.
- ^ Afghanistan to complete first railway by end of year
- ^ "ADB-Funded Railway to Help Afghanistan Improve Regional Links, Boost Growth". Asian Development Bank. 2009-09-30.
- ^ Afghanistan’s First Railroad Aims to Undermine Taliban Funding Bloomberg, 2009-10-28
- ^ a b "Construction of Afghan railway launched". Railway Gazette International. 2010-01-27.
- ^ "Modern construction methods mastered on Mashhad - Bafgh line". Railway Gazette International. 2007-07-01.
- ^ "Rail Link With Herat". Iran Daily. 2007-02-27.
- ^ Murray Hughes (2008-01-29). "Opening up Afghan trade route to Iran". Railway Gazette International.
- ^ Pakistan, Afghanistan ink MoU on rail links by Javed Hamim Kakar, Pahjwok Afghan news, Jul 7, 2010 19:05. Article names Pakistani minister as Abdul Hafeez Sheikh; man by that spelling in Wikipedia is a Pakistani businessman; he and the minister have the same name and honorific in Urdu; it is just alternate renderings of Sheikh, the honorific, in English in the two article titles. Footnote upgraded 2010-07-12.
- ^ "Afghan rail strategy takes shape". Railway Gazette. 2010. Retrieved 2010-07-02.
- ^ "Pointers". Railway Gazette International. 2008-06-15.
- Grantham, A. Railways in Afghanistan
