Afghan railroads, past, present and future
A news report about the suspected terrorist incident on the railway from Termez to Tajikistan has a photo showing what looks like a steam loco painted the colours of the in Uzbek flag, on the top of a hill. Anyone know where or what it is?
The sign on the coach on the foreground says it is going to or from Termez.
I recently found this link to the website:
… I had an appetite for more background, and found Railways of Afghanistan. What ever did I waste my time on before the internet?Source: Silk Road, Iron Horse, Copper Wire, Airforce Amazons, 2009-12-29
The comment spam has got to silly levels, hundreds of the blighters a day. While the anti-spam function gets most of them, I don’t want to risk missing any real comments which trigger a false positive but get lost when I clear out the filter.
So, to see if it cuts it down the junk I have tried implementing a blocker which asks a simple question before accepting a comment – the answer is kabul
Let me know if there are any problems.
In a second-hand book shop in Beverley over Christmas I came across (though didn’t buy) Afghan Trucks, a book of photos by Jean-Charles Blanc published in 1976.
It has very few words, just an introduction, but contains lots of photos of brightly-painted lorries in Afghanistan; there are some examples at Tabsir.net.
The pictures painted on the lorries have themes including aerial battles; rockets and interstellar spacecraft; armadas of galleons and fleets of steamers; duels fought to the death between savage beasts
, and there were even some lorries decorated with pictures of trains.
One picture was of a train from the USA’s Santa Fe railway, and one was of an exotic-looking streamlined passenger train which I couldn’t identify – perhaps Russian?
This afternoon I was at the British Museum (along with what seemed to be half of London and a significant proportion of Europe) for the newly-opened exhibition Afghanistan: Crossroads of the Ancient World.
Enamelled glass goblet from Begram, 1st century AD (© Trustees of the British Museum)
The exhibition offers an impressive display of shiny things from the National Museum of Afghanistan’s archaeological collections, ranging from Classical sculptures, polychrome ivory inlays originally attached to imported Indian furniture, enamelled Roman glass and polished stone tableware brought from Egypt, to delicate inlaid gold personal ornaments worn by the nomadic elite.
These showcase the trading and cultural connections of Afghanistan and how it benefited from being on an important crossroads of the ancient world.
The highlight for many visitors seemed to be a gold crown, though I was impressed by the enamelled glass (above).
All of these objects were found between 1937 and 1978 and were feared to have been lost following the Soviet invasion in 1979 and the civil war which followed, when the National Museum was rocketed and figural displays were later destroyed by the Taliban. Their survival is due to a handful of Afghan officials who deliberately concealed them and they are now exhibited here in a travelling exhibition designed to highlight to the international community the importance of the cultural heritage of Afghanistan and the remarkable achievements and trading connections of these past civilisations.
The earliest objects in the exhibition are part of a treasure found at the site of Tepe Fullol which dates to 2000 BC, representing the earliest gold objects found in Afghanistan and how already it was connected by trade with urban civilisations in ancient Iran and Iraq. The later finds come from three additional sites, all in northern Afghanistan, and dating between the 3rd century BC and 1st century AD. These are Ai Khanum, a Hellenistic Greek city on the Oxus river and on the modern border with Tajikistan; Begram, a capical of the local Kushan dynasty whose rule extended from Afghanistan into India; and Tillya Tepe, (“Hill of Gold”), the find spot of an elite nomadic cemetery.
Source: British Museum, November 2010
The exhibition was very busy on a Sunday afternoon, but I manged to get a ticket for timed admission within 40 min of arrival (you can pre-book online) and spent a bit over an hour inside. It isn’t heavy on detailed labels, just impressive exhibits. The exhibition is on from 3 March to 3 July 2011.
At risk of stating the blindingly obvious, this exhibition of ancient artefacts contains nothing about railways. Having said that, flicking through the catalogue I found a description of the problems the Kabul museum has suffered. In 1995,
In the no-man’s-land behind the museum, one locomotive from King Amanullah’s railway stood rusting, the second one was stripped down for scrap metal.
Source: Afghanistan: Crossroads of the Ancient World, Fredik Hiebert and Pierre Cambon (editors)
This again suggests that there was once two locomotives at the museum, which agrees with some other past news reports. Photos show three locomotives now, so where did the third one come from?
Indian ivory furniture support from Begram, 1st century AD (© Trustees of the British Museum)
At present there is a temporary exhibition at the National Army Museum in London, The Road to Kabul: British Armies in Afghanistan, 1838–1919. It is open until “spring 2011”, and I went along on 9 January 2011.
It is quite interesting (and free), although I think it probably helps to go armed with at least some background knowledge on the three Anglo-Afghan wars. It is a very traditional exhibition, with medals, photographs and objects “associated with” various people involved in the wars. There are some interactive touch-screens, and while I am of the view that such things are the work of the devil, these ones were actually functional and do provide access to some interesting photographs.
The only railway content is, unsurprisingly, in the photographs forming part of the display on the Third Afghan War. There is an interesting picture of a narrow gauge troop train in [what was then] India on show in the museum, but not on the website (as far as I can tell).
There is also a photo showing the “Ropeway transit system at Landi Kotal c.1919” (Photo NAM 1963-09-633-12). This is the first photo I have seen of the Khyber Pass ropeway, which is mentioned in passing in PSA Berridge’s book Couplings to the Khyber, which says “Two roads and an aerial ropeway preceded the inflexible iron road” in the Khyber Pass.
Finally, the exhibition highlights this quote:
In Kabul in 2001 I was sent with a unit to meet with an Afghan government minister. We had to explain that we weren’t Russian, we were British. As soon as we did he rounded on us and shouted: ‘British? You burned down the covered market!’ My first thought was s***, what have the Paras done now? I apologised and we got on with the meeting. Back at base I asked who had burned down the market. Blank faces all round, until someone at the back said he thought we had burned down the covered market. In 1842.
Warrant Officer, 1 Mechanised Brigade
Also coming up this year is an exhibition at the British Museum called Afghanistan: Crossroads of the Ancient World, which is open from 3 March to 3 July 2011.
As of August 2010, BTR expanded its services to include railway cargo escort to Afghanistan border. BTR escort specialists accompany the shipments to Galabo, Uzbekistan, the closest railway station to Afghanistan
, said Lithuanian firm Baltic Transit Rail on 29 November 2010.
BBC News: “Brave Afghan bus drivers’ gauntlet of terror“. Features an innovative piggy-back omnibus-car transportation solution in one of the photos.
The Istanbul – Tehran – Islamabad eastbound return working of last year’s westbound Economic Cooperation Organization train left Istanbul on August 2, running via Iran’s Bam – Zahedan line.
The eastbound train of vans and container wagons – seen here in Turkey – was due to arrive in Islamabad on August 13, a faster transit time than last year’s train.
Does anyone know if it successfully made it to Iran and Pakistan?
It 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.
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