A photo found on Flickr showing Baghdad Central railway station.
From a presentation by Dr. Ghada Siliq for the exhibition of City of Mirages: From Wright to Venturi. The exhibition took place in Casa Árabe, Madrid.
Baghdad Central station photo
December 3rd, 2008Oil by rail in Iraq
November 30th, 2008Press release about transporting oil by rail from Bayji to Haqlaniyah in Iraq. The goal is to have two trains of 20 cars each per day
.
Trains Deliver Crude Oil to Al-Anbar Refinery
Thursday, 16 October 2008
By Cpl. Sean Coolman, Regimental Combat Team 5HAQLANIYAH – Trains delivering precious crude oil continue to arrive here despite harsh conditions and obstacles.
Marines and Sailors with Civil Affairs Team 6, Detachment 1, 2nd Battalion, 11th Marine Regiment, Regimental Combat Team 5 are here to make sure the trains are running at full capacity and arriving at the train station without encountering any obstructions.
“We’re renovating the train station to have it operable so that trains can pass through and deliver crude oil to the offload station,” said Sgt. Nelson L. Neely Jr., 22, a machine gunner with CA Team 6, from Houston. “We go there and check on the project and see how the trains and tracks are doing.”
“We help manage the trains as they come in,” said Staff Sgt. Graham H. Webb, 26, team chief with CA Team 6, from Ripley, Tenn. “We work with the Iraqi Railroad to coordinate the movement of crude oil from Bayji to Haqlaniyah.”
The CA team has spent approximately $450,000 of Commanders Emergency Response Program (CERP) funds thus far on improvements on the railroad itself and railroad station, which supplies the refinery here with crude oil to be processed. The goal is to have two trains of 20 cars each per day, which should support the refinery here and produce 16,000 barrels a day.
“When they bring the trains in, the crude oil gets sent to the refinery and then distributed all around al-Anbar province,” said Webb. “Access to fuel by the people lowers fuel prices and helps the economy in al-Anbar province.”
An issue the railroad has encountered is frequent sand drifts, which can cover portions of the railroad and affect the number and regularity of incoming trains.
“The refinery here depends on the train station to get the oil,” said Webb. “We paid a contractor who uses a bulldozer to manually clear the tracks, and we also gave money to the train station to build a blower to mount on the front of the trains.”
Plans are also in the works for future improvements on an existing oil pipeline to bring in additional oil.
“There are plans to repair (an existing) pipeline (that would) bring in additional crude oil to the area,” said Webb.
On a recent visit to the train station by CA Team 6, Kahlid Kamil Hussni, an Iraqi contractor in charge of clearing the railroad tracks at the Haqlaniyah train station spoke warmly of the Coalition force members here.
“If it wasn’t for (CA Team 6) and the Americans, this project would never have happened,” said Hussni.
Source: Multi-National Force Iraq
Iraqi railways video
November 26th, 2008
Alive in Baghdad employs Iraqi journalists to produce video packages each week about a variety of topics on daily life in Iraq
, and this week has a short video on Iraq’s railways, subtitled in English. Through the work of a team of Americans and Iraqi correspondents on the ground, Alive in Baghdad shows the conflict through the voices of Iraqis.
The video includes footage of Dalian diesel locomotives in action in Baghdad, and a still picture of a British-built 8F steam loco.
100 Years Later, Iraq Railroad Still Runs
VIDEO – Iraq, Baghdad – The railroad in Iraq has a long history of wars and occupations, in the 1920s the railroads tracks were used by the British forces for transporting military supplies from London to Baghdad during the British occupation and it was well known with the name “Orient Express”
The greatest era of the Iraqi railway was during the 1970s. Iraq imported new trains at that time and developed a new international schedule, with trains leaving Baghdad heading to Damascus, London, Berlin, Paris and other destinations in Europe. Iraqis and people all over the world used to dream of the chance to take a trip in the famous “Orient Express.”
…Now the Iraqi Republic Railways company is trying to fix the trains and is working on improving the old Orient Express, hoping the railroads will be modernized and good enough for passengers to use regularly in the near future.
This week our correspondent Nabeel Kamal visited the Iraqi Republic Railways company in Baghdad to see how the progress is going with this old company that is in fact older than Iraq itself.
Source: Alive in Baghdad 24 November 2008
The Orient Express in its many forms didn’t actually go to Baghdad, but only as far east as Istanbul, where passengers had to cross the Bosporus by boat – though a tunnel is now being built.
Sadly the Orient Express is now reduced to running from Strasbourg to Vienna and back; the Man in Seat 61 explains all.
The book The 8:55 to Baghdad by Andrew Eames provides a more recent perspective on the journey from London to Baghdad. Agatha [Christie] used just two trains, the Orient Express and the Taurus Express, and then took what was effectively a taxi across 400 miles of desert from Damascus to Baghdad. Although both the OE and the TE still exist, they are nothing like what they used to be, so I had to string together a total of eight trains to do the same trip. And then join a coach of very unlikely characters to cross the desert into Iraq, in the last months before war broke out.
Baghdad Central station from above
November 25th, 2008
An aerial photo of Baghdad Central station taken by Antonio Edward.
Baghdad metro plan is revived
November 20th, 2008The Guardian of 18 November 2008 reports the revival of plans to build a metro in Baghdad, with money being set aside for a feasibility study.
Baghdad goes underground with $3bn metro plan
…
[On 17 November] the mayor of Baghdad surprised everyone by announcing plans for an underground train network that will literally carve a swathe through the city’s sectarian lines.If investors sign up, the world’s most violent capital will soon have a $3bn (£2bn) metro. Sabir al-Issawi, Baghdad’s mayor, said money had been set aside in next year’s budget for a feasibility study.
And if that goes ahead, the Iraqi government has earmarked funding that it claims could build most of the two mooted train lines without private help. Even the country’s eternal optimists were last night calling the plan ambitious, but lauding its audacity.
…
One of the new proposed subway lines would run 11 miles from Shia-dominated Sadr City in the east to Adhamiya in north Baghdad. The other would traverse 13 miles and link mixed central Baghdad to the primarily Sunni western suburbs.
Both lines would have 20 stations each
…
The project’s engineer Atta Nabil Hussain Auni Atta, of Iraq’s transport ministry, said old 1970s blueprints for the underground line were being redrawn to bring it up to speed with the specifications of modern railways.
Source: Guardian, UK
This map of a proposed two-line metro network was produced in the past
In July 1982 Railway Gazette International reported plans for a metro. Work was to start August 1983, for test running 1986:
| Construction phase | Line | Route | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Phase 1 | Line 1 north to west | Thawra (depot)/Sadr City – Aadhamiya | 32km 36 stations. 60% bored tunnel, rest cut and cover |
| Line 2 south to east | Mansour (depot) (south) – Masbah (east) | ||
| Phase 2 | extensions | 11 km, 10 stations | |
| Phase 3 | Line 3 | In north of city |
Another 18 November 2008 report:
Iraq plans Baghdad metro to ease traffic
…
One metro line would run 18 kilometres from the far side of the eastern Shiite slum of Sadr City to the centre of the city and then up north to the mostly Sunni Adhamiyah neighbourhood, covering 20 stations.The second line, extending 21 kilometres, would start in the south and pass through the central commercial district of Karrada before crossing the Tigris river and running out to the mostly Sunni neighbourhoods in west Baghdad.
…
Source: AFP/Yahoo
