“View Of The Khyber Pass From Shagai Fort”, a photograph by Private J W Linley of 2nd Battalion the Northamptonshire Regiment, uploaded to Flickr by Northampton Museums Service. There is a bit of railway in the bottom right corner.
There are also other interesting pictures on the Northampton Museums Service’s Flickr collection.
Some photos of the Khyber Pass in 1932 uploaded to Flickr by Emmyeustace. One shows the wrong sort of train.
Also an 1891 photo.
…the British Indian government had just started making inroads to the Khyber Agency by extending it’s railway beyond Jamrud.
The Peshawar – Jamrud railway had already been constructed on which the “Flying Afridi” train service would make a trip once a day. This train service, part of the greater Kabul River Railway or the Loye Shilman railway project, was to be extended much deeper into the Khyber Agency. The initial survey by Captain Macdonald was to follow the upstream right banks of the River Kabul along the Loye Shilman territory till the village of Palosi on the Afghan border. Although less challenging, this route was scrapped due to political issues of the time with the then Amir of Afghanistan, Amir Habibullah Khan and also probably due to the sheer number of bends in the River along the route.
Source: The Frontier Clasp and its Railways, Omar Usman, Khyber.org, 2011-03-14
There is a map which shows the Kabul River railway.
Peshawar-Jalalabad railway route
ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Railways (PR) has completed a feasibility report of the Chaman-Qandahar railway track and it has now requested the World Bank to assist in the feasibility of the Peshawar-Jalalabad route.
Director Planning Ministry of Railways Aftab Akbar told APP that the PR’s top priority is rehabilitation, upgradation of infrastructure and lying of new tracks with an aim to be a hub of economic activities for regional countries.
[More about Pakistan Railways' plans]
Source: The News International, 2011-03-28
In January 2010 a Chaman – Kandahar study was reported as having been submitted to the Afghan government.
On July 7 Afghanistan and Pakistan signed a memorandum of understanding to undertake feasibility studies for extension of Pakistan Railways lines from Chaman to Kandahar and from the Khyber Pass to Torkham and Jalalabad.
Source: Railway Gazette International, August 2010
Photos of Peshawar and the Khyber Pass taken by Anthony Maw on 27 August 2007, showing the remains of the Khyber railway.
The April 2010 issue of British Railways Illustrated magazine has an article with lots of photographs of the Khyber Pass line taken by Gavin Morrison in the 1970s. There is a companion article about Pakistani narrow gauge in the April 2010 Railway Bylines, with basically the same text but different pictures.
The text isn’t especially detailed, being a brief description of the visit, rather than a history of the lines, but there are some very nice pictures of steam engines in action in spectacular scenery.
Sadly the Khyber Pass line is now out of action, with sections having been washed away and revival seemingly a distant prospect – unless the Chinese decide to rebuild and extend it to serve their Afghan copper mining concession at Aynak.
The 2’6″ gauge railway from Bostan to Zhob (Fort Sandeman) has closed. The track was lifted by the authorities to prevent (further) theft, although the government has announced plans to rebuild it as a 1676 mm gauge line and construct a 150 km extension to Dera Ismail Khan, cutting 400 km from the distance by rail between Quetta and Peshawar.
I’ve just been re-reading a fascinating book I found whilst browsing dusty shelves in a bookshop in Rawalpindi when I was last in Pakistan (1997). It is called “Adventure Through Khyber” by Victor Bayley … His task: to design and supervise the construction of a railway through the Khyber Pass, a railway which would eventually link far off Bombay to the Afghanistan Border at Landi Khana.
In an article at Asia Times Online, Syed Fazl-e-Haider writes about co-operation between China and Pakistan, including plans to extend the Khyber Pass line and build the Spin Boldak line. There is also discussion of a direct China – Pakistan railway.
Chinese shun Pakistan exodus
…
China has also shown interest in early laying a track between the Pakistan border town of Torkham and Jalalabad in Afghanistan, as the Chinese want to use the Pakistan Railways network to transport their goods and equipment for the development of copper mines and various other projects in Afghanistan. Separately, Pakistan Railways has completed a feasibility study for a rail section between Chaman, in Balochistan, and Kandahar in Afghanistan that is part of a proposed link across Afghanistan to Turkmenistan.
Source: Asia Times Online, 2009-09-11
The achievements and embarrassments of Zardari visit
By Shaheen Sehbai
WASHINGTON: Three major outcomes of the bilateral and trilateral summit talks between Presidents Zardari, Obama and Karzai are now becoming visible as officials of the three countries hammer out details of how much money would be poured in, how it would be spent and how it would be monitored.
…One solid suggestion made by a Pakistani official, got immense attention and generated an intense discussion in one of these meetings. It was to build a railway track from the port of Gwadar to Peshawar, passing through the mainland of Balochistan and along the western side of Pakistan, then going into Afghanistan through the dormant Peshawar-Torkham rail link and to Kabul onwards through Jalalabad.
This idea was also presented to President Zardari by an American expert, the Pakistan Embassy sources revealed. Zardari was excited about it as the project could involve billions of dollars that the US was ready to invest, it would revive Pakistan’s industry and economy, it could bring Balochistan into the mainstream by generating jobs and providing them goodies coming out of the project, it could spur construction industry by building hundreds of railway stations and other facilities needed and it could provide Pakistan an alternate route from Karachi to Peshawar.
For Afghanistan, as well it could be a booster as the rail link could enter Afghanistan at the south-eastern border with Pakistan and could be carried to any place inside Afghanistan by US dollars, lessening the dependence on transit trade through troubled Fata and Taliban-infested areas. It also fits the US goal of joint Af-Pak development, serving the US as well as Pak-Afghan interests.
Source: The News International 2009-05-10
News from Railway Gazette International