Railways of Iraq

Finnish firm Desec has supplied two TL70 track machines to Iraq.

Iraqi Republic Railways Company received two Switch Laying Machines type DESEC TRACKLAYER TL 70 from Desec Ltd, Finland in March 2007. The contract includes also spare parts and large training package in Finland.

The Contract was awarded to Desec after international tender and hard competition. The contract further strengthens Desec Ltd’s position as leader manufacturer of switch laying machine in the world and in Middle-East.

The Desec Tracklayer (TL) is a multi-purpose machine for track renewal. TL’s speciality is turnout (switch) replacement. It is a unique machine since it can independently pick up track- and turnout panels from any place where they are laid or from a wagon, move them to the working site and install them to the track with great speed and accuracy. The machine grips the load being carried against the bottom of the Tracklayer’s body, so that no sag or distortion of the load occurs. In five minutes the machine can load and unload itself off and onto the flat wagon or trailer for transportation from site to site within loading gauge as an ordinary freight transport on rails.

Due to increasing requirements for fastness, cost-efficiency and quality in turnout replacement the DESEC Turnout Laying -system has increasingly replaced the conventional systems in turnout assembly and replacing.

So far 29 Desec Tracklayers have been sold to 15 countries worldwide.

Detroit News dated 14 June carries a report from Eric English/Associated Press

After years of running railroads in Michigan, Richard Van Buskirk Jr. decided to take his expertise to Iraq and help with a dangerous mission.

The 58-year-old East Tawas executive and Vietnam veteran spent the past year working as a consultant for the U.S. Department of State, helping Iraqis rebuild their national railway system.

“Their railroad had been severely damaged when the country was taken over by coalition forces,” said Van Buskirk, who returned home in April. “We’re helping them glue back together the things we destroyed.”

…
It was 12 months he’ll never forget.

“I’ll be honest with you, it was a great adventure,” he said.

Van Buskirk said he applied for the job in 2006 when he saw an Internet advertisement for a position as a railroad adviser in Iraq.

“It sounded incredibly challenging, and it’s about doing the right thing,” he said.

“They need our help over there and they need people with experience.”

While overseas, Van Buskirk said he was able to reopen 720 miles of rail lines to allow train shipments to resume.

…
Van Buskirk said Iraq is rich in natural resources, and its railroad is modern and well built.

More at the Detroit News website

Collector of Iraqi railway stamps Rainer Fuchs e-mails to highlight an article on the Iraq The Lasting Love blog, about the history and legends of the old al Sarrafiya bridge in Baghdad, which was blown up on April 12.

The bridge formerly carried a metre-gauge railway. The book Middle East Railways by Hugh Hughes says the bridge was built by London firm Holloway Bros, and opened to rail traffic in October 1950, replacing a wagon ferry which could just manage about 72 four-wheelers a day.

Federal News Radio has an AP photo by Hameed Rasheed showing a wrecked station building. The caption says Two people look through the ruins of a damaged train station building after U.S. warplanes and helicopters shelled al-Abbasiya railway, near Samarra 95 kilometers (60 miles) north of Baghdad, Iraq, on this Monday, June 4, 2007.

Marine Corps Times has a little more information: Two Iraqi men stand in the ruins of a building after a U.S. air strike on the al-Abbasiya railway, about 60 miles north of Baghdad on June 4. The American warplanes and helicopters shelled al-Abbasiya railway, and later the land forces attacked the station, killing four people including two women and detaining 20 people, police said.