More on increased Uzbek rail tariffs at Eurasianet: “Uzbekistan: Did Karimov Tantrum Prompt NDN Transit Fee Hike?“.
Uzbek freight rates
February 13th, 2011Increase in Uzbek rail tariffs
February 7th, 2011FMN Logistics Responds to Increased Uzbek Rail Tariffs
Rising tariffs will affect wide range of NDN operations
(Tashkent, Uzbekistan, February 3, 2011) – FMN Logistics, Inc., a provider of freight forwarding and logistics services, today responds to the recent significant tariff increase imposed on Northern Distribution Network (NDN) rail cargo by Uzbekistan Temir Yullari (UTI), the national railroad of Uzbekistan. UTI levied a tariff increase effective on February 1st on consigned shipments for United States and International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) non-lethal rail cargo into and out of Afghanistan.
“FMN Logistics is following these developments very closely,” said Harry Eustace, Jr. CEO of FMN Logistics. “We are communicating with our customers and all of our partners in Central Asia to ensure that everyone fully understands how this tariff hike will impact shipping operations into and out of Afghanistan. Our goal is to assure that there is no disruption to important deliveries of food and other non-lethal cargo movements.”
About FMN Logistics
FMN Logistics is a specialist freight forwarding and logistics service provider with headquarters in Washington, DC and operations throughout Central Asia and the Middle East. In 2010, FMN delivered over 2,500 cargo containers to Afghanistan for US and ISAF forces. FMN is the largest volume logistics service provider in Central Asia for Operation Enduring Freedom.
Source: Fifth Millennium Networks, Inc, 2011-02-03
Fuel discharge at rail terminals
February 6th, 2011NAPCO is a wholly Afghan-owned company that imports and distributes petroleum products all over Afghanistan
:
We have built two modern trans-shipment points for discharging Rail Tank Cars (RTCs) into tanker trucks at Turghundi and Hairatan, giving NAPCO a significant competitive advantage in shipping fuel along the ‘Northern Route’ into Afghanistan
Source: Locations and Facilities, NAPCO
Meanwhile,
Presently, Gas Group imports propane gas from Turkmenistan by rail to Turghundi where there is a large 500 tonne storage facility with another 500 tonne facility in Herat. Tankers carry the gas by road from Herat through Kandahar to Kabul where there is an 800 tonne facility for storage and distribution.
Energy Solutions, Gas Group
Friendship Bridge photos
January 30th, 2011People posing for photos around the Friendship Bridge in 2007, by “Najeebullah”.
Some videos of the Mazar-i-Sharif line
January 23rd, 2011Firstly, two videos from the Asian Development Bank:
Then CNN:
And finally “On The Road in Balkh: Exploring Hairatan City” features trains from 1:22:
The Road to Kabul: British Armies in Afghanistan, 1838–1919
January 16th, 2011At 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.
“Considerable progress” with the extension of regional railways
January 9th, 2011Statement by Afghanistan’s Minister of Foreign Affairs at the 19th Session of the ECO Council of Ministers- in Istanbul on 22 December 2010:
[...]
As H.E. President Karzai stated in his important speech in the Kabul Conference of July 20th this year, Afghanistan in the future will be the nexus of regional economic cooperation and we are committed to share the benefits of Afghanistan’s centrality with our neighbors and countries in the region particularly the ECO member states to increase transit of goods and energy as well as movement of people within our region.Our national road and railway programs have been precisely designed to serve this important vision of Afghanistan for regional cooperation.
It was in September this year that the ECO Truck Caravan passed along some of the newly built regional, national and provincial roads across the northern Afghanistan which is clearly indicative of the progress made in the implementation of our National Road Program.
Moreover, considerable progress has been made on the extension of regional railways to Afghanistan and through Afghanistan to other countries including the railway route from China along Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan to Afghanistan, and through Afghanistan to Iran, Turkey and Europe.
In this connection, I am pleased to refer to the construction of the Hiratan – Mazar-e-Sharif railway which will be completed in the next few weeks; the ongoing construction of the Sangan-Herat railway and the ongoing preparation of the pre-feasibility study report for the Kandahar- Chaman railway.
Source: Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, 2010-12-25
Railway from Iran to Herat – does it really exist?
January 4th, 2011I have had a few enquiries about the state of progress with construction of the Iranian-backed railway extension from Khaf to Islam Qala and Herat.
Does anyone know anything about the status of the project? How much – if any – construction has actually been completed? If you know anything, please let me know! Even just a report of a glimpse of construction works out of an aircraft window would be something.
View Iran – Herat railway in a larger map
Lenz railway study in 1928-29
January 2nd, 2011The Stichting Samenwerking Afghanistan – Nederland website has some information about the 1920s plan for a rail network in Afghanistan.
Here is an attempt at translating the relevant bit, via Google Translate with some hand-editing.
King Amanullah gave German architects permission to build the new royal palaces, a number of factories and a small railway in Kabul. Later in 1928 the king asked a German railway commission headed by Berlin company Allgemeine Baugesellschaft Lenz & Co to lay a railway between Kabul, British India, Iran and the Soviet Union. This company sent Dutch engineer Adrianus van Lutsenburg Maas to Afghanistan in 1928 for construction of the railway.
Adrianus van Lutsenburg Maas worked in Afghanistan between 1928-29 as an engineer with the German company. The project failed owing to a nationwide revolt, and van Lutsenburg left Afghanistan in 1929. While in Afghanistan he kept diaries, wrote letters and took photographs of everything.
Source: Geschiedenis, Stichting Samenwerking Afghanistan – Nederland
The article (in Dutch) also has some modern photos of the locomotives at the museum in Kabul.
Presumably this listing at The Genealogy Page of Jorge Heredia and Heleen Sittig at Rootsweb is the man in question: Engineer, born 20 Dec 1893, Dantumadeel, died 10 Apr 1979, Den Haag. His material appears to be in the Netherlands’ Nationaal Archief.
Darulaman railway in 1926
December 26th, 2010This narrow gauge railroad ran from the Shah-do-Shamshira to Darulaman
; a photograph taken in 1926 at the Williams Afghan Media Project website. It is the same photo as the one from German magazine Uhu in February 1930, although Uhu cropped the edges.
