Author: Andrew Grantham

Afghanistan – Tajikistan railway project to start within 6 months

Posted on by Andrew Grantham

Pajhwok Afghan News reports that Public Works Minister Najibullah Awzhan announced on 3 October 2013 that work on a 75 km railway between the Kaldar district of Balkh province and Tajikistan “would be launched in the next six months”. The $200m cost is to be met from the ministry’s development budget.

While special police units are to be deployed to provide security for the construction work, the minister hopes there will be no problems and project will “help boost economic activity in the country.”

Unfortunately the Ministry of Public Works website is currently broken.

Kaldar district is the area bounded by Hairatan to the west and the Amu Darya river forming the border with Tajikistan to the east. From a map, 75 km looks to be about the right distance for a line starting from the existing railway at Hairatan and running to the Tajik border. There is an existing railway in Tajikistan, which the new Afghan line could connect to.

In July 2013 RFE/RL’s Radio Free Afghanistan reported – with a handy map – that this route had been given “tentative approval”. It is intended as a temporary measure, pending completion of a planned 300 km line to the Tajik border at Shirkhan Bandar. Public Works Minister Najibullah Ojan told RFE/RL that the temporary link would be dismantled “once the longer section via Konduz is completed in about four years”.

Strategy

The question must be what this future line would carry. It is hard to imagine that there is sufficient Afghanistan – Tajikistan traffic to justify building a railway.

The existing railway lines to Tajikistan all pass though Uzbekistan. Relations between the two countries have been troubled, and there have been reports of wagons for Tajikistan being delayed in Uzbekistan. Even after this new railway line opens, any traffic from the wider world to Tajikistan would still need to transit Uzbekistan en route to Afghanistan and thence Tajikistan, so presumably traffic for Tajikistan using this new line would still be vulnerable to disruption if the Uzbek authorities knew where it was going?

The new line would really come into its own if/when the future line from Turkmenistan to Andkhoy in Afghanistan line is extended to connect with the Hairatan – Mazar-i-Sharif line. That would then provide a through route from Turkmenistan to Tajikistan via Afghanistan, bypassing Uzbekistan altogether. And in the longer term, there is the possibility of a China (- Kyrgyzstan?) – Tajikistan – Afghanistan – Iran – Turkey – Europe route, albeit with lots of borders to cross, two breaks of gauge and the train ferry across Lake Van.

Khyber Pass railway tunnel photo

Posted on by Andrew Grantham

A photo of the Khyber Pass railway from the Railway Gazette International archives.

On the back of the picture is a handwritten caption: “On the Khyber Railway – a push trolly on a down grade entering a tunnel, after it has already passed through the top tunnel. P.W.R.”.

PWR is presumably Pakistan Western Railway. The back of the picture has a 30 March 1962 date stamp; this might be when the picture was developed or when the magazine received it, rather than when the picture was taken.

Tajik rail link rethought?

Posted on by Andrew Grantham

“Afghan Province Upset At Being Left Out Of Touted Rail Network”, reports Abubakar Siddique at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty on 31 July 2013.

The planned railway across northern Afghanistan from the Turkmenistan border to Andkhoy and then east to Tajikistan was due to connect with an extension of the Tajik railway network at Shirkhan Bandar in Kunduz province.

But a new, shorter route given tentative approval this month by the Afghan Public Works Ministry would bypass Konduz by linking the neighboring Afghan province of Balkh to Tajikistan at a point further west along the two countries’ common border.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Governor of Kunduz, Mohammad Anwar Jagdalak, is unimpressed. He told RFE/RL “This new proposed link will prove disastrous for Shir Khan Bandar,” and “We are petitioning our president to plead that the move violates the principle of balanced regional development.”

Afghanistan’s Minister of Public Works Najibullah Ojan told RFE/RL that the time and cost needed to complete the “momentous project” had led the authorities to consider building a 50-60 km temporary rail link on a shorter route, but this line would be dismantled once the longer route via Kunduz was completed in “about four years”.

Jalalabad and Spin Boldak railway agreements announced

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President Karzai visited Pakistan’s Prime Minister Muhammad Nawaz Sharif on 26 August 2013. Associated Press of Pakistan reports that The Prime Minister also announced that the two sides, in the meeting of their finance ministers, had agreed on several projects on communications, power and railway. […] The two sides also agreed on establishment of rail links to connect Torkham and Jalalabad as well as Chaman to Spin Bolduk.

This is not the first time the two railway projects have been reportedly agreed in some form.

Quetta - Chaman - Kandahar railway map from 1893

Building a Torkham – Jalalabad railway would require reinstating the washed away Khyber Pass railway to join the new line to the rest of the Pakistan Railways network.

A feasibility study for an extension of the existing railway to Chaman across border to Spin Boldak was reportedly completed in 2010, after a flurry of interest in the project in 2008-09.

The concept goes back a long time, with proposals for a line to Kandahar in the nineteenth century.

Chaman station in 1900 and 2009

Railway station, Chaman, 1900

Chaman Station.

Railway consultant interviewed

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The Brentwood Gazette interviews British railway consultant David Brice:

“David Binderbrice, 79, has visited Afghanistan a dozen times since 2007, helping the authorities in the war-torn country to design more than 2,000 kilometres of new tracks in the process.”

Source: Meet the brains behind rail route from China to Europe, Matt Reason, Brentwood Gazette, 24 June 2013

US railwayman advising on maintenance and safety

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[…]
Brian Hakey is a locomotive engineer from the Sunny Point Military Terminal near Southport.

He’s heading to Afghanistan for a year-long mission to mentor people overseas on the proper ways of maintaining a railway and the safety procedures involved.

Hakey is one of five people making the trip as part of the United States Railway Assistance Team.
[…]
Source: Brunswick Co. military member to teach in Afghanistan, Ben Powell, WECT, 15 June 2013

100 000th container on the NDN

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Celebration of the 100,000th Container along the NDN

June 11, 2013

On June 11th, Ambassador McCarthy visited Riga Free Port to participate in a celebration of the 100,000th container to pass through the Northern Distribution Network, which includes Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, to Afganistan, organized U.S. Embassy in Riga, in cooperation with the Latvian MFA and Ministry of Transport.

Among the senior diplomats present at the event were U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia Lynne Tracy, the U.S. Ambassadors to Latvia Mark Pekala, Latvian Foreign Minister Edgars Rinkevics,Latvian Minister of Transportation Anrijs Matiss as well as other U.S. military officials.

Initially activated in 2009, the route has brought more than 2 million tons of nonlethal equipment through ports in the Baltic nations of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia and then overland into Afghanistan to support operations. The route traverses the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, the Black Sea, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan before reaching Afghanistan.

The route was created as an alternate way to move supplies into Afghanistan instead of depending on a single route through Pakistan. It is one of the longest lines of military supply lines ever created, according to U.S. Army Col. Matthew Redding, commander of the 598th Transportation Brigade in Sembach, Germany. His unit coordinates the logistical effort through U.S. Transportation Command’s Surface Deployment and Distribution Command.

“The 100,000th container is not the story, that is simply a number,” said Col. Redding. “What is really important is the Baltic cooperation and the ability to link it to our foreign policy as it relates to the entire region.”

The route requires close cooperation between not only nations but U.S. Transportation Command, U.S. Army Europe, the U.S. State Department and its embassies, as well as the commercial entities that contract for the transport.

“It represents cooperation amongst our agencies in the U.S,” said Ambassador McCarthy. “The DoD and Department of State cooperation has been vital in the last few years. It’s also a celebration of our ability to work with foreign governments thinking about not only a common cause in Afghanistan, but about the future of Central Asia.”

The ceremony also set the stage for a conference June 12 in Riga discussing the future of the network as a means for withdrawing equipment from Afghanistan as 2014 approaches, and the expansion of the route for commercial purposes.

“We are trying to create, on the basis of the Northern Distribution Network, a whole new way of thinking about transportation and logistics in this region,” said Ambassador Pekala. “Latvia and the other Baltic states could be the center of what they call a new Silk Road … a 21st-century logistics and transportation hub. This represents how that can be achieved working together on the basis of free enterprise, democracy and cooperation.”
Source: Embassy of the United States, Lithuania

Not like the WWII Persian Corridor, where the volume of traffic was censored!

Presidents launch construction of Turkmenistan – Afghanistan – Tajikistan railway

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Turkmenistan’s President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov, Afghanistan’s President Hamid Karzai and Tajikistan’s President Emomali Rahmon were in Atamyrat on 5 June 2013 for an elaborate ceremony to launch construction of the first phase of a railway planned to link the three countries.

Afghanistan's

The helicopters took the leaders of Turkmenistan, Afghanistan and Tajikistan from the airport in Turkmenabat to Atamyrat town, where the ceremony would be held. The leaders of Turkmenistan, the Republic of Tajikistan and the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan signed a message to the descendants, put it into a capsule and poured the first shovels of concrete, thus giving a kick-start to the construction of the new railway.
Source: Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Tajikistan railway to be built, State News Agency of Turkmenistan (TDH), Turkmenistan: the Golden Age Online Newspaper, 5 June 2013

Design work for the initial 85 km from Atamyrat (formerly called Kerki) to the Imamnazar border crossing between Turkmenistan and Afghanistan was completed in 2012. Following a March 2013 meeting between the presidents, Afghanistan formally invited the Turkmen authorities to undertake studies for a 38 km continuation across the border to Aqina and Andkhvoy. This could be funded and built by Turkmenistan. It would provide a second rail link between the countries, in addition to the line to Towraghondi.

The longer-term plan is to continue the new railway across northern Afghanistan to Sherkhan Bandar and Tajikistan.

…[the Presidents] of Turkmenistan, Afghanistan and Tajikistan arrived by helicopter at Atamyrat station. Here, the leaders of three countries signed a letter addressed to posterity, put it in a capsule and place it in concrete, thus giving a symbolic start to construction of a new railway. In their presence, the first rails of Atamyrat-Imamnazar-Akina-Andhoi section of the main railway were laid. This section is stretching for 123 kilometers. The Turkmen part of the railway from Atamyrat station to Akina station, the first station of the new railway in Afghanistan, will be constructed by Turkmen specialists. The length of this portion is 87 kilometers.

Source: Construction of Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Tajikistan railway launched, Turkmenistan.ru, 6 June 2013.