History

History of aviation in Afghanistan

Posted on by Andrew Grantham

It was decided to move the aircraft to Kabul by elephant and to try to repair it.

Lennart Andersson has written a history of the first 30 years of aviation in Afghanistan.

The history of aviation in Afghanistan is more or less a “white spot”. The reason is undoubtedly the county’s inaccessibility, both geographically and politically. Old photos of aircraft in Afghanistan are extremely rare, finding detailed information is difficult, and consequently few publications have dealt with aviation in that country. As always, there are sources for research, however, although they may be difficult to find, and with unearthed information it is possible to outline the early history of aviation in the recently so war-torn and devastated country.
More

Italian engineers and electrification plan

Posted on by Andrew Grantham

FIRST AFGHAN RAILWAY
(from our own correspondent)
SIMLA, Sept.20.

Italian engineers in Kabul are reported to be collecting engines and rolling stock for the first railway to be opened in Afghanistan between Kabul and Darulaman, six miles from the capital. The construction of the line is expected to begin shortly. The possibility of making it an electric tramway is discussed in certain Afghan papers.

The Times, 30 September 1922, p9 (Issue 43150; col G)

The reference to Italian engineers is interesting – one might have expected the people involved to be German.

German contract in 1930

Posted on by Andrew Grantham

From Hansard

KABUL-TORKRAN RAILWAY.

HC Deb 05 May 1930 vol 238 cc641-2W 641W

Mr. FREEMAN asked the Secretary of State for India whether the Government of India have been officially advised or consulted with regard to the contract made by Afghanistan with the German firm for the construction of a railway linking Kabul with Torkhan, the last Afghan post on the Indian frontier; if the proposal contemplates the connection the main line from Kabul with the Russian rail-heads at Kask [presumably Kushka] and Termez; and whether the Government of India have communicated to him their observations on the proposal?

Mr. BENN I have no official information of the existence of any such contract, though I have seen the newspaper report to which my hon. Friend no doubt refers.

I’ll looked at an online archive of The Times, and the newspaper report in question doesn’t seem to have appeared there.

Kabul railway parcel stamp

Posted on by Andrew Grantham

The Trains on Railway Parcel Stamps & Railway Letter Stamps of the World pages of the Aphabetilately website includes a picture of a 1923 issue of a 2 paisa railway parcel stamp from the railway to Darulaman. A paisa was a subbdivison of the Afghan rupee used in the 1920s.

The stamp is described as “small quantity issued, no used copies seen”, citing page 29 of Patterson, presumably Afghanistan: Its Twentieth Century Postal Issues by Frank E Patterson III (New York; The Collectors Club, 1964).

The logo is the national emblem of Afghanistan, first used during the reign of King Amanullah and now in the centre of the current national flag. It shows a mosque, with the mihrab (the niche indicating the direction of Mecca) and a minbar (pulpit), with a royal shako (hat) above. The rays forming eight points were inspired by the 19th century Ottoman Imperial standards, and the shape changed from a circle to an oval in 1921, according to the Afghanistan 1919-1928 section of the Flags Of The World website.

King Amanullah on the presidential train

Posted on by Andrew Grantham

Amir’s Progress

The Presidential Train of Old Paul von Hindenburg rolled into Berlin, last week, with its heating apparatus most unfortunately not functioning. The honored passengers were Their Majesties the Amir & Queen of Afghanistan who, with almost their entire suite, appeared to be suffering from colds.

[More]

Source: Time, 1928-03-05

Kunduz cotton railway

Posted on by Andrew Grantham

There was once a narrow-gauge railway in the Consolidated Cotton Company factory at Kunduz in northern Afghanistan.

I can’t find any information about Consolidated Cotton online, but according to USAID: In the 1960s, Kunduz was the home of the Spinzar Cotton Company, which helped to make it one of the wealthiest provinces in Afghanistan. Although the factory is no longer in operation, Kunduz maintains steadily improving infrastructure, with a plentiful water supply and high level of literacy.1

Spinzar which means white gold when translated into English, was formed in 1936 by a group of traders. It was sold to the state-owned Miley Bank of Afghanistan in 1944, ultimately passing to the controlled of the Ministry of Light Industry and Foodstuffs.2 Spinzar would appear to still exist, and it seems possible that it might be the same thing as, or a successor to, Consolidated Cotton.

The Consolidated Cotton Company of Kunduz, 63 per cent of whose stock was acquired by the Ministry of Finance in 1955, is gradually adjusting to provide a larger ginned cotton base for Afghanistan’s textile industry and for exports. In 1957, it replaced the old gins at Kunduz with eight new British models each having a capacity of 1500 pounds per hour and capable of extracting up to 37 per cent by weight of lint from long-staple cotton. It has also replaced or increased the number of gins in the outlying towns and plans to add several new ginning centers to its operations. But the most spectacular improvements are those being carried out in Kunduz itself, a rapidly growing city with a present population of perhaps 30,000, where the Company has employed Unimac of Austria to build new warehouse and operating facilities including equipment for making cooking oil, margarine and soap from cottonseed oil. The old operations of the plant have largely been modernized with the installation of air-suction and blower systems to carry the raw cotton from the storage sheds directly to the ginning plant and to feed the ginned cotton automatically to the cleaners and the hydraulic baling press. A narrow gauge railway then transports the bales to either of two warehouses with an 8000-bale capacity each.
Data on plant and operations from interviews with Messrs. Fox and Meyer, Austrian and German engineers, at the Cotton Company plant in Kunduz, September 25-26, 1957.

Source: The Kabul, Kunduz, and Helmand Valleys and the national economy of Afghanistan 3

References

  1. Afghanistan’s Provinces Kunduz, USAID website ↩
  2. Afghanistan Rebuilding Agricultural Markets in Afghanistan Cotton Production Assessment, Chemonics International Inc for US Agency for International Development, Kabul, July 2004 ↩
  3. Aloys Arthur Michel, The Kabul, Kunduz, and Helmand Valleys and the national economy of Afghanistan, (National Academy of Sciences, Washington DC, USA, 1959) p113 ↩

The Khojak rope inclines

Posted on by Andrew Grantham

There is an article about the Khojak Rope Inclines at the Funimag website, which covers funicular railways.

The Khojak tunnel is (now) in Pakistan, on the railway from Quetta to Chaman on the Afghan border.

The defense and the supply of Chaman could not wait for these three years of digging Khojak tunnel. The Indian government decided to build a temporary line of communication, quick and inexpensive to cross the mountains until the end of the work in the Khojak tunnel (1889-1891).

The temporary railway line was built in 1888 and crossed the summit chain Khwaja Amran mountains with the help of four inclined cable railways which allowed to move locomotives and carriages from one side to the other side of the mountain.
[more…]

Jabal Seraj cement works railway

Posted on by Andrew Grantham

In the late 1950s an industrial narrow gauge railway served a cement works at Jabal Saraj, about 60 km north of Kabul.

According to An Historical Guide to Kabul1 The little town of Jabal Seraj is built around Afghanistan’s first hydroelectric station which was installed during the reign of Amir Habibullah (r. 1901-1919) by the American engineer, A.C. Jewett. There is also a large textile mill and a cement plant at Jabal Seraj.

One final industrial installation must be mentioned here, however. This is the newly-completed cement plant at Jabal Seraj. The 100-metric ton per day mill, built under the $5 million loan extended by Czechoslovakia. in 1954, was located at Jabal Seraj after a good deal of discussion regarding the proper location of Afghanistan’s first cement plant. Surveys made by an industrial engineer on the United Nations Technical Assistance Mission had recommended that the mill be built at Pul-i-Khumri, near the Kar Kar coal mines and with abundant local supplies of good limestone and gypsum. A ready market for cement is also to be found in the Kunduz Valley. However, the Ministry of Mines and Industries decided that the Kabul market should take precedence even if it was necessary to bring coal from north of the Hindu Kush to supply the plant. A belt of semi-metamorphosed (crystalline) limestone had been located by the German firm of Kochs in the folded and faulted strata just north of Jabal Seraj where the Salang River cuts through the sedimentary formations. So the plant was assembled, a small-gauge railway constructed and a quarry opened. However, the initial supply of gypsum for the mill was brought all the way from Pul-i-Khumri, while the extremely friable coal of the Ishpushta mine, located just north of the main Hindu Kush range and near the Great North Road which follows the Bamian and Surkhab Rivers, was being trucked in over the 9800-foot Shibar Pass and over almost 125 miles of unimproved roads. At the end of February, 1958, the plant had built up a four-months supply, calculated on the basis of from 24 to 30 tons of coal per 100 tons of cement, and was just beginning to operate its limestone crushers preparatory to making the first batch of cement. Enough gypsum was on hand for six-months’ operation, calculated at three tons per 100 tons of cement. But it appeared highly desirable for the plant to develop a local source of gypsum as quickly as possible. Limestone and water are available in sufficient quantity, but the cement mill also runs the risk of a shortage of electric power since it will require 12,000 kwh per 100 tons of cement. The electricity and coal needs of the Jabal Seraj cement factory will be reconsidered under “Power Resources and Requirements” of Afghan industry in Chapter X and related to the hope of building a second Czech-financed cement mill, with a capacity of 200 metric tons per day, at Pul–i-Khumri.

lnformation on the cement plant is from an interview of February 8 1958 with Mr Puchek one of the Czechoslovakia engineers at Jabal Seraj

Source: The Kabul, Kunduz, and Helmand Valleys and the national economy of Afghanistan2

References

  1. Nancy Hatch, An Historical Guide to Kabul, (Dupree, Kabul, 2nd edition 1971), quoted at aisk.org ↩
  2. Aloys Arthur Michel, The Kabul, Kunduz, and Helmand Valleys and the national economy of Afghanistan, (National Academy of Sciences, Washington DC, USA, 1959) pp70-1 ↩

King Amanullah in Berlin

Posted on by Andrew Grantham

King Amanullah in Berlin (Photo: Deutsches Bundesarchiv <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/de/deed.en">License</a>)

22.2.1928: Afghanischer König in Berlin is a German-language article from Deutsche Welle about King Amanullah’s visit to Berlin during his 1928 European tour.

In the 1920s a number of German engineers, doctors and other experts were Afghanistan to assist with modernisation and development.

King Amanullah’s visit was particularly significant for Germany, because it was the first state visit to the country since its defeat in World War I.

Afghanistan had remained neutral in the Great War, which was useful for Britain as this meant that some of the troops who would otherwise have been needed to defend the Northwest Frontier were available for deployment elsewhere. However the Third Afghan War took place in 1919.

While in Berlin the King drove a type A-II U-Bahn train, which led to the class being known as the Amanullah-Wagen.

Does anyone know where he drove the train – someone must have made a note of which stations he visited?