Flickr user “Hired Gun” has some rather artistic photos of rail facilities at Al Qaim in northwest Iraq, near the border with Syria. DEM 4152 (or is it 4153?) is a Francorail loco dating from the early 1980s.
NATO is “Making progress on Afghanistan rail route”, according to a Eurasia Insight report dated May 5. It seems NATO is hoping to move freight between Europe and Afghanistan via the rail connection from Uzbekistan to Hayratan, across the Friendship Bridge.
NATO is striving to rapidly conclude a deal with Central Asian states on an inter-continental rail link that would ease the supply of non-lethal equipment and assistance for both military and reconstruction operations in Afghanistan.
The rail project is an outgrowth of NATO’s efforts to reinvigorate its Afghan operations. Discussions on how to improve Afghan reconstruction efforts featured prominently at the alliance’s early April summit in Bucharest. [see previous posting] …
At present, the cost of supplying NATO operations in Afghanistan is astronomical, due mainly to the fact that most supplies must be brought in by air. According to NATO estimates, airlifting supplies to Afghanistan costs a whopping $14,000 per ton, or roughly $7 per pound. In addition to the high cost, the air option may not be able to handle the requirements necessitated by an expansion of NATO forces in Afghanistan.
A Europe-Afghan rail link could cut supply costs to roughly $300-$500 per ton, allowing the bloc to both save tremendously on transportation and increase supply for its Afghanistan operations. The optimal route envisioned at this time would traverse Ukraine, Belarus, Russia, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. By all appearances, NATO has secured approval in principle from all the potential transit states.
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… no new railroads are expected to be built at this point; the route will follow existing Soviet-era high-capacity tracks. … NATO indicated that if route proves reliable and efficient, the alliance will seek the permission of transit states to allow military equipment to travel over the railway. This option would necessitate closer cooperation between NATO and the Russia-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), of which several transit states are members.
The full article has a lot of background to the political implications of allowing such traffic through the surrounding countries.
Other than the Europe-Afghan railway, there would seem to be no other viable options for the overland supply of Afghan reconstruction efforts.
Pandrol is a company which makes those little curly metal things which hold the rails in place:
The Iraqi Railways are rehabilitating and replacing large areas of their railway network and following successful trials of the Pandrol Fastclip elastic rail fastening, the Railway has adopted Pandrol fastenings as its standard. Pandrol are also supplying machines for the mechanical installation of the rail fastenings. Pandrol hope to develop more business opportunities in Iraq in the future as further track projects are approved.
Photos of a train crossing the Uzbekistan-Afghanistan border, taken by Australian humanitarian relief worker Liz Johnson. The loco is an Uzbek Railways’ TEM2 diesel, built at the Bryansk Engineering Works in Russia to a design which evolved from some US Alco locos supplied to the USSR under the World War II lend-lease scheme.
The May 2008 issue of Today’s Railways magazine has an interesting article on the Septemvri - Bansko - Dobrinishte line in Bulgaria; “The Rhodope Mountains route. BDZ’s last narrow gauge line” by Chris Bailey.
In summer 2006 I did the route as part of a holiday trip to Bulgaria, and subsequently wrote an article about the narrow gauge line.
David’s Bat Blog has a details of a bat detector (that’s “bats” as in “belfries”), partially inspired by sound mirror design.
The prototype is only 60cm by 20cm, so I wasn’t expecting miracles, but tests at varying ultrasound levels showed that, using the reflector a Duet bat detector could pick up the artificial bat between 30% and 70% further away than it could on its own. Positioning of the detector microphone is critical, as it needs to be at the precise focal point of the reflector for best results.
More at Bats, bombers and acoustic mirrors.
Dan in the Desert has some photos of Baghdad Central station taken in 2006, including bullet-marked loco DEM 2725.
Some old articles from Railway Gazette regarding a unrealised 1960s scheme for a rail link from the Pakistan Railways railhead at Chaman to Spin Boldak, a short distance across the border in Afghanistan.
Spin Boldak is a major border crossing point, and it seems that railway extension plans have been talked about every so often.
20 May 1966
Talks between Afghanistan and Pakistan were held on May 4 1966 regarding building a railway to Spin Baldak. 
2 September 1966
Construction to Spin Baldak “is to begin soon”.
17 May 1968
Bad news: the Spinbaldak scheme, which was to have been financed by the US Agency for International Development, has been abandoned.
(clippings © Railway Gazette International)
