AndrewGrantham.co.uk

“Construction of a 191 km railway from Iran to Herat in Afghanistan, with the prospect of an extension across Afghan territory to Sher Khan Bandar, promises to stimulate trade with Central Asia.” reports Murray Hughes in the January 2008 issue of Railway Gazette International.

The current scheme was launched when a Memorandum of Understanding was signed in June 2002 between the Iranian Transport Ministry and the Ministry of Public Utility in Kabul. The project was costed at US$28m and construction was split into four lots, two in Iran, and two in Afghanistan; work officially began in Iran on July 29 2006.
…
It is from the penultimate loop at Khaf that the single-track line to Herat begins.

From Khaf the route heads slightly south and then east across the border through arid and rugged terrain. Total length of the new line is 191 km, of which 77 km is located in Iran and 114 km in Afghanistan. Of the 10 intermediate stations envisaged, Ghurian will be the largest intermediate town served by the section on Afghan territory.

…

Preliminary investigations have been made for an extension from Herat that would run for no less than 700 km across northwestern Afghanistan to Meymaneh, Sheberghan and Sher Khan Bandar on the border with Tadzhikistan. This route would also offer the opportunity to connect with the 1 524 mm gauge line that crosses the Uzbekistan frontier near Termez, penetrating as far as Hariatan. This line is now handling trains nearly every day, mainly carrying petroleum products, machinery, building materials and agricultural produce.

You can read the full article on the Railway Gazette International website.

1927 British Locomotive

Originally uploaded by holdemhill

Another picture of one of the steam locos in the Darulaman museum. It was actually made by Henschel in Germany, rather than in Britain.

In 2004 Michael Rich sent me some photographs of the sound mirrors at Dungeness. Unfortunately I lost his e-mail address - if he is out there and reads this, could he get in touch with me?

Thanks!

Simon Darvill has found some records of more industrial locomotives which were supplied to Afghanistan!

He is currently going through the works lists for German loco builders as part of some work for the Industrial Railway Society on industrial railways of Benelux, and found the Afghan machines in a Ruhrthaler works list.

German company Ruhrthaler Maschinenfabrik built four 600 mm gauge 4wDM locos, works numbers 3787-90/1964. According to Ruhrthaler’s works list they were delivered to “Working Group Mahipar”.

Simon’s theory is that they were supplied in conjunction with the constuction of the Mahipar power station, a hydro-electric power station on the Kabul River 40 km downstream from Kabul. The dates support this, as the locos were supplied to Hochtief, dispatched on 31 July 1964 and the power station opened in 1966.

Dr Paul E Waters’s 2002 book Afghanistan: A Railway History says (unfortunately without a reference):

On 15 March 1969 Wilfrid Simms noted four B-B diesel-hydraulic locomotives in a compound at the head of the Tang-i-Jharoo or Afghan Pass on the road from Kabul towards the Khyber Pass. They were numbered TIJ 1 to 4, were of about 60 cm gauge and appeared to be of East German or other Soviet Block origin. They had presumably been used on recently completed road improvements, whch included several tunnels. Armed guards inhibited attempts at close inspection or photography.

Could these be the same locos - actually West German and for a hydroelectric project? I’ve not pinned down the location of Tang-i-Jharoo on a map yet. Anyone know where it is?

Ruhrthaler background

Ruhrthaler Maschinenfabrik is now part of Bräutigam, who describe Ruhrthaler as follows:

In order to further strengthen our market position, we acquired the RUHRTHALER machine works in 1996. A prestigious company that established itself worldwide as a designer and manufacturer of locomotives and as the market leader in mining locomotives and monorail systems over the course of its 100-year history. From 1924 on, they supplied local and foreign sources with more than 4500 diesel locomotives.

Power station background

A PDF with details of the Mahipar & Sarobi Hydropower Plants:

The run-of-river hydroelectric power plant Mahipar is located on the Kabul river about 40 km downstream of the capital Kabul. The hydropower scheme was completed and the first two units commissioned in 1966 to provide mid and peak load electrical power to the grid for supplying the city of Kabul. A third unit was installed some years later.

The Afghan Energy Information Center has some more information.

The Restoration & Archiving Trust’s old colour photos of the standard gauge and now-defunct metre gauge railways in Iraq are now at a new address.

Well worth a browse.

Railways Africa reports that a 15km line between Khorramshahr and Shalamcheh is nearing completion

Monday, 07 January 2008
According to an Iraqi transportation ministry announcement, the Baghdad government “’strongly supports” the implementation of a proposed rail project linking Iran and Iraq.

The Al-Alam TV network quoted Iraq Railways Javad Al-Khorrasan saying: “During the first phase of the project, a railway will cross from Basra and head to Iran via Shalamcheh.”

…

In terms of a second plan, a line is envisaged from Baghdad via the north west of Iraq to Monzariyah and thence into Iran.
…

YouTube has this video from 1 March 2007, “3 TV News Reports on New Iran Railroad to Afghanistan”, about the opening of the Torbat-e Heydariyeh - Khaf railway within Iran, and a 200 km extension now under construction towards Herat in Afghanistan.

For those of us who don’t speak Persian(?), there is a translation here. Mr Mohammadizadeh, governor-general of the Province of Khorasan-e Razavi, says:

Construction work began on this railroad in the year 2002. It is 148 kilometers long. It has eight stations and cost about 50 billion tomans, fortunately it went into operation today [1 March 2007].

The primary objective in creating this line is to haul iron ore, with an annual load of about .52 million tons.

…

More important is that the vital artery for the economic development of our nation with the friend and brother nation of Afghanistan will travel by way of this very railroad.

About 6 months ago inside Afghanistan the ground was broken for the Afghanistan railroad by our president of the republic’s first vice-president and today also the ground was broken for the line from Sangan to Harat inside Afghanistan.

The credits for ths project have been procured, and for the first time the culture of the railroad is coming into the friend and brother nation of Afghanistan and the nation of Afghanistan will have a train and a railroad.

It appears that the conditions that exist in Afghanistan in terms of reconstruction and the needed goods in the outside world, this railroad can be effective achieving economic development and the social welfare of the people of Afghanistan.

It can therefore be said in short that this project has great importance for the iron ore of Khaf, for the use of the people in several cities along the route and especially for establishing a railroad for government of the Islamic Republic of Iran for the people of Afghanistan.
…

The line that goes into operation today is 148 kilometers long, but the work is beginning on a line into Afghanistan with about 50 kilometers inside our country and about 150 kilometers inside Afghanistan. This year about 45 billion tomans have been allocated for the new line, and we are hoping that this task will be completed in the year 2007.

The projected Afghan railway is a report from the New York Times of 26 October 1879 about plans for a railway to Kandahar from Shikarpore, in what was then British-ruled India but is now Pakistan. Some of the attitudes towards the peoples of the region are firmly in the “they don’t write them like that any more” category.