Telegrams in Brief.
The only railway in Afghanistan, the narrow-gauge line between Kabul and Dar ul Aman, the new city built two years ago by King Amanullah, had its first serious accident last week, when an engine overturned, killing one man and injuring two. Its driver, a Peshawari Pathan, escaped.
The Times, 19 June 1928, p15 (Issue 44923, col G)
Archive for the ‘History’ Category
Accident on the Darulaman railway
Sunday, December 5th, 2010Kabul to Darulaman railway in 1930
Sunday, November 21st, 2010“Train en afghanistan 1930” is a photograph of the Kabul to Darulaman railway, scanned from French magazine Sciences et Voyages No. 533 of 3 April 1930 by “Jean-Pierre 60″.
The original caption says Il existe, en Afghanistan, quelques kilomètres de voies ferrées. La photographie represente une station de chemin de fer
[There are, in Afghanistan, a few kilometres of railway. The photograph shows a railway station].
The locomotive has a headlight, which doesn’t appear on earlier pictures.
Steam loco at the National Museum of Afghanistan
Thursday, November 4th, 2010The Museum And The Palace
at the From UBC to Kabul blog by Brian Platt has some photographs of the Kabul museum and its plinthed Henschel steam locomotive which were taken on 30 October 2010. One of the locos with a collapsed cab is also visible in one of the shots.
After wondering around inside for a while, I explored the outside yard of the museum. The most interesting piece was this, the rusted-out body of a steam engine. It’s from the 1920s when Amanullah, the leader of Afghanistan from 1919 to 1929, worked his ass off to modernize the country.
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However, Amanullah’s policies were attacked viciously by various conservative factions in Afghanistan, and eventually he was forced into exile in Europe. All that’s left of his grand train visions are sitting on the lawn of the National Museum.
Source: From UBC to Kabul, 2010-11-03
Trans-Caspian railway article
Sunday, October 31st, 2010«Русское чудо» в черных песках (“Russian miracle” in the black sands) is a Russian-language article about the history of imperial Russia’s Trans-Caspian railway, published in the June 2009 journal of the Russkiy Mir Foundation. Google Translate is pretty reasonable.
Construction of the Friendship Bridge
Sunday, October 17th, 2010
Just south of Termez, at Heratan, on the Amu Darya river, diplomats understand that a reinforced steel bridge is being constructed. The aim, it would seem, is to improve the roads and garrison facilities right from the Soviet border to KabulRussians switch to commando-type raids in Afghanistan, Karan Thapar, The Times, 19 September 1980, p1 and p6 (Issue 60728; col C)
Narrow gauge railways in Tajikistan
Sunday, October 3rd, 2010“Narrow gauge railway Dushanbe – Kurgan-Tube – Kulyab, Nizhniy Panj” – in Russian, but Google Translate works pretty well.
The 750 mm gauge railway network in the southwest of Tajikistan was started in 1929. Originally there were two unrelated lines: Kurgan-Tube – Nizhniy Panj…
Nizhniy Panj is on north side of the river which forms the border with Afghanistan. The railway closed in the 1990s, but there is some talk of building a new line in the area with a bridge to Afghanistan and onward connections to Kunduz, Mazar-i-Sharif and beyond.
There is also a link to a general history of railways in Tajikistan (in Russian).
“How my grandma saw King Amanullah”
Sunday, September 12th, 2010In the third and final part of a little series, Thomas Ruttig takes you on a journey in G.H. Wells’ time machine, back to Berlin in the year 1928 when Afghan King Amanullah visited the German capital as first head of state after the end of Kaiser Wilhelm’s monarchy. Read how the King drove the Berlin ‘tube’, what he got as a present of honour and how the Berliners made ‘Ullemulle’ – and I am sure this nickname was meant to be friendly – their King of Hearts.
Source: Afghan Encounters in Europe or: How My Grandma Saw King Amanullah
Coal mine railway in Afghanistan
Sunday, August 1st, 2010Some notes on the Karkar and Dudkash coal mines, which use narrow gauge railways. It would appear they had at least four locomotives in the past.
History of aviation in Afghanistan
Sunday, July 18th, 2010It was decided to move the aircraft to Kabul by elephant and to try to repair it.
Lennart Andersson has written a history of the first 30 years of aviation in Afghanistan.
The history of aviation in Afghanistan is more or less a “white spot”. The reason is undoubtedly the county’s inaccessibility, both geographically and politically. Old photos of aircraft in Afghanistan are extremely rare, finding detailed information is difficult, and consequently few publications have dealt with aviation in that country. As always, there are sources for research, however, although they may be difficult to find, and with unearthed information it is possible to outline the early history of aviation in the recently so war-torn and devastated country.
More
Italian engineers and electrification plan
Sunday, July 11th, 2010FIRST AFGHAN RAILWAY
(from our own correspondent)
SIMLA, Sept.20.Italian engineers in Kabul are reported to be collecting engines and rolling stock for the first railway to be opened in Afghanistan between Kabul and Darulaman, six miles from the capital. The construction of the line is expected to begin shortly. The possibility of making it an electric tramway is discussed in certain Afghan papers.
The Times, 30 September 1922, p9 (Issue 43150; col G)
The reference to Italian engineers is interesting – one might have expected the people involved to be German.
