Afghan railroads, past, present and future
“Rebuilding Afghanistan’s transport and energy network” is a September 2011 gallery of really excellent photographs of the new railway to Mazar-i-Sharif, taken by Jawad Jalali of the Afghan Eyes photo agency.
Photo 32 shows a building which looks distinctly like a passenger station.
“Afghanistan joins railroad era _ 100 years late” an Associated Press article by Kay Johnson, dated 10 March 2012, with photos of trains near Mazar-i-Sharif taken by AP’s Mustafa Najafizada on 6 March 2012.
Awaz News video showing construction of the railway:
Photographs of the first commercial train to Naibabad (terminus of the new railway from Hairatan to Mazar-i-Sharif), on 3 February 2012.
All photos by David Brice.
The train was hauled by locomotive 2ТЭ10М-2337.
The train comprised nine wagons carrying flour from Kazakhstan and three wagons of Siberian timber.
There is another photo on a 7 February 2012 story from Ariana News For the first time transport of goods by rail commenced in Afghanistan: “The Naibabad port has the capacity of loading and unloading 34 trucks at a time while the local officials are looking to upgrade the capacity of that port.”
The CAREC article Hairatan-Mazar-e-Sharif railway opens, highlights country-to-country cooperation has a photo of an inaugural train arriving at the “newly built Naibabad Station in the city of Mazar-e-Sharif” on 21 December 2011. “Although the seven-carriage train carried no cargo, it brought great opportunity for increased trade and cooperation between Afghanistan and its neighbors in Central Asia”.
Celebrations were held at Naibabad freight terminal at 12.00 on February 3, when ‘a substantial reception party’ greeted the arrival of the first train carrying commercial traffic on the 75 km rail link between Hairatan and Mazar-i-Sharif. [more…]
Source: Afghan railway starts commercial traffic, Railway Gazette International, 3 February 2012
The train was hauled by locomotive 2ТЭ10М-2337, and comprised nine wagons carrying flour from Kazakhstan and three wagons of Siberian timber.
Design studies for the second Turkmenistan – Afghanistan railway line have been completed, and work will start “soon”, the Afghan President’s office reports following a meeting between Presidents Karzai and Berdimuhamedov in Türkmenbaşy on 25 January 2012.
… President Karzai met Wednesday morning President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov to discuss a number of important economic projects including the TAPI, the Afghan-Turkmenistan railway and electricity export to Afghanistan.
[…]
Accompanying the President on the trip was Afghan Mining Minister, who said a design and full study of a separate project involving the establishment of an 84 km of railway extending across the Atamyrat-Ymamnazar in Turkmenistan to Akina-Andhoi in Afghanistan had been finalized with actual work expected to begin soon.Source: Afghan and Turkmen Presidents Vow to Implement Critical Projects, Office of the President, Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, 26 January 2012
From Turkmenistan comes this report:
The Presidents also noted the great potential of cooperation in transportation and communications sector. They discussed the project on construction of the railway Atamyrat-Ymamnazar-Akin-Andhoy. A framework agreement on construction of this railway was signed during the official visit by the President of Turkmenistan to Afghanistan in May 2011. According to the interlocutors, construction and commissioning of the new railway will not only serve the development of transport infrastructure in Afghanistan but can become a significant element in the regional and international transit transportation in the long term.
Source: Turkmen-Afghan high level talks held in Turkmenbashi, Turkmenistan.ru, 26 January 2012
Here is a map I put together previously:
View Turkmenistan – Andkhoy railway plan in a larger map
There are downloadable MP4 format videos entitled Afghanistan Train Line, Coal Baghlan Province and Gold Mine on the website of Awaz News, “an Afghan independent news agency operating throughout Afghanistan and providing in-depth reporting to television and radio networks.”
On the “Economy/Infrastructures” section of the website, the “Afghanistan Train Line” (13 minutes) video includes images of bridges and construction sites, along with Iranian flags. While the commentary is not in English (presumably it is Dari – can anyone confirm?) there are some recognisable place names. From this, I think the video might well show hard evidence of construction works underway for the Iran to Herat railway. The video shows bridges and cuttings, but no sign of tracklaying or railway systems installation.
The computer generated impressions of trains are clearly not of Afghanistan – they appear to show Skoda CityElefant electric trains from the Czech Republic.
The “Gold Mine” video (12.12 minutes) has some brief railway shots, I suspect of the Karkar and Dudkash coal mines.
The mines are covered depth in the “Coal Baghlan Province” video (13.5 min) on the Natural Resources section of the Awaz News website, this video is well worth a watch if you are interested in industrial things.
A couple of photographs of Hairatan which the Asian Development Bank has uploaded to Flickr. They are dated 27 August 2011 – and I think they might have the captions the wrong way round.
“A private wagon enters from Uzbekistan to the border of Afghanistan Hiaratan in the new rail way line.”
“Main station of Rail way in Hairatan border between Uzbekistan and Afghanistan new rail way line. “
We saw the old trains of Kabul as well, which was very cool. I knew there was an original railway here but I didn’t know where or if it was still in Kabul.
A Day at the Afghanistan National Museum is an article by Jim Rentfrow at the website of the Green Gem Foundation, “new non-profit organization established to promote the development of ethical gemstones“.
He describes a visit to the museum on 17 December 2011, with some good photos of the “non-plinthed” Henschel steam locos, which along with the remains of the coaches seem to have gained a roof over them, which is good news.
Angle Iron Rail Project is Green Gem Foundation project to fund a “rudimentary rail system” based on trolleys running on angle iron tracks to ease work in gem mines in Kunduz, Nuristan or elsewhere. Apparently coal and peridot mines in Pakistan use this system.
It seems a test train ran on the Hairaton to Mazar-i-Sharif railway line on 21 December 2011.
The first journey on Wednesday was intended to test the track and signals, before the formal opening of the project at which President Hamid Karzai is expected to attend.
“This is a matter of pride for us and a very important issue for Afghanistan,” said Deputy Public Works Minister Noor Gul Mangal, who was there to watch the train arrive in Mazar-e-Sharif.
He said the government planned to build another line into Turkmenistan, to the north-west.
Afghan railway: First train runs on new line in north BBC News, 21 December 2011
Locomotives had conducted test runs on the new line but would haul their first commercial cargo on Wednesday in the form of a wheat shipment belonging to the World Food Programme, the UN relief agency, said an ADB official in Kabul.
Afghan rail plan to boost mineral exports, Matthew Green, Islamabad, Financial Times, 20 December 2011