Photos from the Northern Afghanistan Railway Study

Photo of the Mazar-i-Sharif rail freight terminal

42533-022: Hairatan to Mazar-e-Sharif Railway Project in Afghanistan

The Asian Development Bank has published this rather fine photo, captioned:

Railway terminal in Mazar-e-Sharif, Afghanistan, January 5, 2014. The railway has provided easy transportation for oil, wood, flour, wheat, asphalt and other important products

There is what looks like a TEM2 diesel locomotive in the background.

Despite the date in the caption, the metadata says the picture was taken on 19 December 2013, by Jawad Jalali (presumably this Afghan photographer).

Opening of the Khyber railway

The UK’s National Army Museum has this rather good photo of The opening of the Khyber railway, 1925. Photograph by Randolph Bezzant Holmes (1888-1973), India, North West Frontier, 1925. NAM Image Number 118645.

The text says:

The Khyber Pass Railway from Jamrud, near Peshawar, to the Afghan border near Landi Kotal was opened on 4 November 1925. Built to allow easier movement of troops to the frontier, the railway climbed more than 1,200 metres (3,900 feet) through 34 tunnels and 92 bridges, and culverts to reach Landi Kotal.

Chaman, Shela Bagh and Gulistan stations in 1895

Photo taken by William Henry Jackson and published in Harper’s Weekly, 1895, now available on the Library of Congress website.

Chaman station
Railway station at Chaman, near Kojak Tunnel.

Gulistan station
Gulistan Station on the Great Military Railway.

Gulistan station
Although labelled as “Gulistan Station on the Great Military Railway, at entrance to Kojak Tunnel”, this is actually Shela Bagh station.

Friendship Bridge opening photographs

A Russian-language photograph archive with images of the official opening ceremony for the Friendship bridge between the USSR and Afghanistan on 12 May 1982, and associated events including a tree-planting ceremony on the previous day.

The photos include a view of the bridge decorated with large photos of Soviet and Afghan bigwigs – I think they are Brezhnev on the left and Afghanistan’s President Karmal on the right(?).