Afghan railroads, past, present and future
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(?).
An Asian Development Bank video features trains at 0:38, 1:41, 2:36.
A BBC Pashto video about Hairatan and railways. I don’t know what the audio says, but there are a couple of interesting locos at 1:10 – ТГМ4Б-0180 (TGM4B) and what might be a ТГМ4А (TGM4A), two types I’ve not seen recorded in Afghanistan before.
Another historical Afghan railway to add to the collection! I have found photographic evidence of a narrow gauge tramway in Kabul in 1904.
If anyone has US$25,000 to spare, there is this for sale at The Wayfarer’s Bookshop in Canada:
Unique Extensive & Historically Important Photograph and Document Archive of Edmund Rich, Summarizing his Service as the Official Surveyor of the British Colonial Forces in the North-West Frontier in 1905-1909, and Containing Excellent First-Hand Accounts of the Bazar Valley and Mohmand Campaigns of 1908, as well as a Detailed Survey of the Khyber Pass for the Planned Kabul River Railway and of the District between Malakand, Swat River and Dir.
It includes “several interesting photos of the working survey team under Rich’s command” and of a “railway camp on the Kabul River, 3 miles from Warsak”.
Another similar – or is it the same? – archive collection was sold in December 2012.
Having recently spent a bit of time in various archive collections (sadly I don’t have US$25k to see this one!) I’m currently writing up some notes to update the webpage about the Kabul River Railway scheme. More information has come to light since the page was first written, and while this has answered a number of questions, it has also raised others. Watch this space!
The April 2008 contract1 between the Afghan government and the MCC-Jianxi Copper Consortium (also known as MCC-JCL Aynak Minerals Company2) for the construction of the copper mine at Mes Aynak has been leaked,3 enabling us to see what it really says about the proposed railway project.
Mes Aynak (meaning “little copper well” or similar) is in Logar province, around 35 km south of Kabul.
Part V section 30 (page 23) of the contract says that “MCC has made a commitment to the Government of Afghanistan to construct, at MCC’s sole expense, a railway associated with the project”. This commitment is “memorialized” in a memorandum of agreement forming appendix 7 (page 57-59), “which shall be adopted and incorporated into the Mining Contract as an enforceable part of this Mining Contract”.
As far as I can tell, the contract doesn’t set out much in the way of technical or route details for the railway. In fact, the parties acknowledge that at the time of the contract “the specific conditions and requirements for the route, construction and operation of the railway have not been definitively established”.
In October 2011 Minister of Mines Wahidullah Shahrani said the initial route had been determined the proevious year, and would run from Kabul to Torkham (on the Pakistan border near the Khyber Pass) and from Kabul to Mazar-i-Sharif via Ghorband, Bamyan and Naybabad. However MCC still needed to sign a contract with China Railway Co for a technical survey.4
It would seem that the mining contract agreement requires a feasibility study for the railway to be undertaken, but does not require that the line is built if this study comes out against it.
(Elsewhere, it has been suggested that a railway is not essential for the copper project, as road transport could be used. This is in contrast to the Hajigak iron ore mining schemes, where the volume of iron ore means that a railway would probably be the only viable transport option.)
The memorandum is binding and “shall form the basis of a definitive railway agreement to be negotiated and concluded by the Parties.” It commits MCC to “conduct reconnaissance (survey) and prepare a feasibility study according to the schedule provided in MCC’s August 16, 2007 letter.” The feasibility study will then be provided to the government for review. If the government disagrees with the conclusions of the study, it may retain an independent expert to review the study.
On completion of the study, and on “on the basis of the railway project being feasible“, MCC would arrange 100% of the finance for the railway and design and build it “on its own” under a build own operate transfer (BOOT) model. The government would use assist MCC in securing the land and route. MCC would be responsible for overall operation and management of the line.
The memorandum requires the parties to negotiate in good faith to conclude a railway agreement within 12 months of the effective date of the mining contract (the effective date is defined as 2 months from the date of the the signing of the contract and final approval by China’s National Development & Reform Commission and Afghanistan’s Council of Ministers). The parties agree that failure to conclude such an agreement within that timeframe shall constitute cause for the mining contract to be revoked.
Part XI section 47 c (page 35) deals with the compensation arrangements if the agreement required in section 30 (or various other sections covering other matters) is not reached.
Within the two years before the full recovery of MCC’s investment, the government would form an operating entity or a joint venture with MCC to study and formulate policies regarding the operation and management of the railway following its take-over by the government. MCC will provide free training on maintenance, operation and management of the railway.
The terms of the memorandum could be modified by agreement of the parties.
An agreement between Tajikistan and Afghanistan could see the planned railway between the three countries take a shorter route – but Turkmenistan isn’t happy about this.
The head of Tajik Railways, Amonullo Hukumatullo, reportedly told journalists on 28 January 2014 that Afghanistan had agreed to drop its preferred route via Shirkhan Bandar in favour of an alternative route proposed by Tajikistan which would run from Kelif on the Turkmenistan/Afghanistan border to Hoshadi in Tajikistan.1
Business New Europe quotes Hukumatullo as saying “The Afghan delegation agreed to compromise after we explained how important the new railway is to Tajikistan, which is currently experiencing great difficulties due to the blockade of goods by Uzbekistan”.
Kelif (Келиф) has little in the way of an internet presence but seems to be situated in Turkmenistan on the north bank of the Amu Darya river which forms the Turkmenistan/Afghanistan border. It is close to the Uzbek border, on the railway from Turkmenistan to Termez.
Hoshadi (Хошади, Khoshady, etc) has even less of an online footprint. Maps are inconsistent, but it appears to be somewhere near Shaartuz (Шаартузском) on the Tajik side of the Tajik/Uzbek border on the railway to Qurghonteppa (which has countless other spellings).
View Kelif – Hoshadi railway proposal in a larger map
There have been previous proposals for the planned new line from Turkmenistan through Afghanistan to head more directly for the Afghanistan/Tajikistan border rather than go via Shirkhan Bandar, but it looks rather like this latest proposal is basically a bypass to enable traffic to reach Tajikistan without transiting Uzbekistan, rather than an attempt to serve northern Afghanistan in its own right.
RIA Novosti quotes Hukumatullo as saying the revised route would be a bit over 200 km long. Tajikistan would be able to avoid paying high fees to Uzbekistan and risking transit problems, while Afghanistan would receive income from transit traffic. The annual volume of freight is given as 5 million tonnes.2
However, Turkmenistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs is not happy with the change of plan, and has issued a press release (my emphasis):3
On January 29, 2014 in the article of the Russian information agency “RIA Novosti” with reference to the head of the state enterprise “Tajik Railways” Amonullo Hukumatullo it was published the information on agreement reached between Dushanbe and Kabul concerning the alternative route of Afghan railway section Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Tajikistan proposed by the Tajik side. In this regard, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Turkmenistan expresses its extreme concern and misunderstanding related to the statement of the Tajik official. It is known that, in accordance with the international standards, the coordination of the multilateral projects is conducted on the principles of mutual respect and equality of all parties involved in their preparation and implementation. Statement of the head of the state structure of Tajikistan on coordination of the railway section with access to the Turkmen-Afghan border without the participation of Turkmenistan is tendentious and absolutely unacceptable for the Turkmen side. In this regard, the Turkmen side expresses its strong protest and notes that such kind of statements have counterproductive character.
Source: Press release for mass media, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Turkmenistan’s 31 January 2014
The Asian Development Bank has published an article Innovative Project Management and Coordination Speed Up Afghanistan Railway Project. This describes how the Hairatan to Mazar-i-Sharif line was “completed in record time” – basically by building on existing plans, awarding a turnkey contact, and chucking plenty of money at it.
The January 2014 article, Issue 51 in ADB’s Knowledge Showcases series, is by Balabhaskara Reddy Bathula, senior transport specialist at ADB’s Central and West Asia Department. He was the project officer involved in the entire process, from technical assistance processing to construction and “operationalizing” of the line.
Worth a read.
The Afghanistan Railway Authority has an official website
At the moment it is mostly “Underconistruction”, except the About ARA page.
I don’t think the locomotive in their heading picture is in Afghanistan!
The New York Times has a very interesting article about the National Museum of Afghanistan, which mentions the steam engines (and links to this website; *waves* to the sudden spike in visitors).
While the emphasis is on the ancient, there are more modern artifacts as well — including several rusting steam locomotives in the gardens. “We have them to remind people that at the end of the 19th century, Afghanistan had railroads, while at the end of the 20th, it did not,” Mr. [museum director Omara Khan] Masoudi said.Source: Saving Relics, Afghans Defy the Taliban. Rod Nordlandjan, New York Times, 12 January 2014
While there were almost certainly no operational railways in the closing days of the 20th century, were there any at the end of the 19th century? It is possible there was something in a factory in Kabul, but I’m not sure whether there were any others. The steam locomotives in the National Museum of Afghanistan date from the 1920s.