Kabul – Darulaman railway locomotive photo

Another photograph of one of the Henschel steam locomotives on the Kabul – Darulaman railway has been found, in the book “Джанг: Восстание в Афганистане” (War: Uprising in Afghanistan) by journalist Евгений Шуан (Yevgeniy Shuan) which was published in Leningrad in 1930.

Steam locomotive in Kabul
AFGHANISTAN’S ONLY STEAM TRAIN (RUNS BETWEEN KABUL AND DAR-UL-AMAN).

The picture was spotted by Markus Hauser, who alerted me to it. His full thread is worth a read, with a lot of interesting pictures of 1920s Afghanistan from the book.

Colourised photo of Darulaman train

Someone has written a bot which automatically colourises photos that are sent to it via Twitter. This is what it did with a photograph of the Darualman railway. Note that this is just for fun, and it is not intended to be historically accurate!

Kabul New City light rail plan

A light rail line is included in the plans for Kabul New City, a proposed a new city 1.5 times larger than the existing one which would be developed between Bagram Airbase and Kabul International Airport.1

Accordng to Dehsabz-Barikab City Development Authority, “there is a LRT line planned on the main city road at the mid term development period”2

References

  1. The Master Plan – Strategic Plan, DCDA

Kabul quarry railway plan

And we are going to put down twelve miles of railway to reach a marble quarry, where the Ameer is going to quarry marble to build a new Cabul with.

Frank H Clemence, in an interview with the Liverpool Post which is quoted in the article “A Cheshire man at Cabul” in the Cheshire Observer of Saturday 20 January 1894.

Does anyone know whether this railway was ever built?

1950s Kabul electric tram plan

In November 1950 Machinery Lloyd reported:

Tramways for Kabul

Preliminary plans have been worked out for the development of an electric tramway system for Kabul which should open possibilities for the sale of British equipment. The pro
Source: Machinery Lloyd, p151, 25 November 1950, Volume 22 Issue 3, Continental & Overseas Organisation Ltd

Google Books doesn’t show any more of the article than this snippet.

And not long afterwards, Foreign Commerce Weekly said:

A tramway company for Kabul was formed in August to develop an electric trolley service when current is available with the completion of the Sarobi power project.
Source: Foreign Commerce Weekly, p15, 19 February 1951, Volumes 42 No 8, US Department of Commerce

Kabul never got an electric tramway, however it did have a trolleybus system, with Czechoslovakian equipment.