Projects

Iran – Herat line will play important role in economic growth

Posted on by Andrew Grantham

“The great project of Khaf-Herat railway – operation of which has also been commenced – will create a significant development in transit and connecting Afghanistan with regional and extra-regional (Europe) countries. Its connection to the railway of Central Asia, Turkey and Europe via Iran and also its connection to Iran’s nationwide railways network – which will stretch from Bandar Abbas to Afghanistan – can play an important role in economic growth and development of Afghanistan,” the foreign ministry official [Mohsen Pakaein, Chief of Afghanistan Headquarter at the Iranian Foreign Ministry] said.

Source: FM Official Underlines Iran’s Growing Aid to Afghanistan, Fars News Agency, 2011-07-04

Presumably operation means “construction”, rather than train operations.

French model for Afghan rail authority

Posted on by Andrew Grantham

The French model for development of rail infrastructure in Afghanistan

As part of the French Presidency of the G8, Thierry Mariani, Minister of Transport, former Special Representative of France to Afghanistan and Pakistan, co-chaired with Wahidullah Shahrani, Minister of Mines of Afghanistan and coordinator of Afghan infrastructure, an intergovernmental seminar on regional cooperation in rail around Afghanistan.

Today [4 July 2011] 21 countries represented by their ministers or deputy ministers, 6 international organisations and 14 railway companies participated in the seminar organized by the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Conseil Economique Social et Environnemental.

Wahidullah Shahrani, Minister of Mines of Afghanistan, with the Afghan Minister of Aviation & Transport, and the Afghan Minister of Public Works, announced the creation of the autonomous authority of the Afghan railways, building on the example of SNCF, the French operator.

This authority will act as leader and planner to identify priorities for development of railway infrastructure within the country and also establish railway cooperation with other countries in the area.

“We are honored that Afghanistan has chosen Paris and the Conseil Economique Social et Environnemental to announce the establishment of the railway authority. I will ensure that French experience and know-how are in the service of our Afghan friends and other countries in the region, in order to best help accomplish this great work of opening up of Afghanistan, a prerequisite for development and therefore its stability, “said Thierry Mariani.

Source: Based on Google translation of Le modèle français au service du développement des infrastructures ferroviaires afghanes. Ministère de l’Écologie, du Développement durable, des Transports et du Logement, Paris, France, 2011-07-04

So does this mean the Afghans are now planning their first railway strike…?

Rail Projects Underway, But a Uniform Network Remains Elusive

Posted on by Andrew Grantham

I’ve had a number of e-mails lately about mentions of Afghan railways in Wikileaks, so I probably ought to do something with them.

This message was reported by Aftenposten on 25 January 2011 but dated “1.2.2010” by the newspaper (1 February 2010, assuming the newspaper is using European date formats). There doesn’t appear to be anything militarily sensitive here, just a bit of interesting stuff about railways, answering some questions. There is confirmation of the Iranian project, pessimism about the copper mine railway plan, and it ends by not sounding very keen on railway development at all.

SECRET SECTION 01 OF 02 KABUL 000388

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 01/26/2035

TAGS: ELTN, EINV, ECON, PGOV, AF, IR

SUBJECT: Rail Projects Underway, But a Uniform Network Remains Elusive
Classified By: Ambassador E. Anthony Wayne for reasons 1.4 b and d.

1. (U) Summary: While two rail construction projects in Afghanistan are underway

Hairatan – Mazar-i-Sharif and Iran – Herat

and several more are under discussion, the dream of a nationwide rail network remains remote. Small-scale projects sponsored by neighboring countries require different rail gauges, matching those of the countries these projects border; while the security situation is delaying two projects and likely deterring proposals for more. The enforcement of a single rail gauge is not practical since it would fail to make connections with at least half of Afghanistan´s neighbors. The Afghan Government must obtain funding f´ and build gauge changing stations if it is serious about connecting Afghanistan´s major population centers and industrial areas by train. End Summary.

Herat and Mazar: The Trains Have Left the Station

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2. (S) The rail link from Herat to Torbat-E Heydarieh, Iran, funded by the Iranian Government, is more than half complete. The section the Iranians are building and funding in Afghanistan is approximately 60 km from their border eastward toward Herat. The Afghan government under the original bilateral agreement with Iran is obligated to fund construction of the Afghan railroad’s second half, consisting of an additional 60 km of track onward to the western suburbs of Herat city. Iran uses standard gauge (1435 millimeter) track within Iran and is likely to use track to this specification within Afghanistan. (Note: standard gauge is the predominate gauge in the United States.)

It would be strange to use any other gauge for this section of line, as presumably no-one will want to take traffic from Iran or Herat to the frontier point and no further.

3. (SBU) Afghan Government officials toured the Iranian-funded portion of the project January 16 [2010] and were reportedly told by Iranian engineers that the rail bed was essentially completed and the rail laying could be completed in 60 days. They also met Afghan owners of property along the first half of the portion of the railroad to be funded by the Afghan government and informed them they would be compensated for the right of way within 20 to 30 days. The Afghan Ministry of Finance has allotted 97 million Afghanis (a little less than $2 million) for this. Herat Governor Nuristani said the Ministry of Finance has promised approximately $55 million for constructing the last stage of the railway, including compensating landowners for right of way for the second half of Afghan portion. Under the terms of the agreement to build the rail line, Afghanistan promised to fund construction of half of the project within its borders and Iran committed to the other half within Afghanistan, as well as extending its own rail line to the border with Afghanistan.

This ties in with what I have heard elsewhere, but puts some numbers on it.

4. (S) Extending from the Afghan/Uzbek border at Hairaton to Mazar-i-Sharif, an Asian Development Bank (ADB)-funded, Uzbek Railways-constructed track will soon be under construction. The 75 kilometer rail line will cost approximately $170 million. ADB awarded the contract in October 2009. Uzbek Government-owned Uzbek Rail agreed to begin construction in December and finish by the end of 2010. However, security concerns have delayed Uzbek Rail´s construction preparations, such as barracks for workers (all of whom will come from Uzbekistan). Uzbek Rail asked ISAF to provide security forces for the site. ISAF was unable to do so but did agree to share actionable intelligence with Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) and assured the company that ANSF would provide security. According to a source in Tashkent, Uzbek Rail deemed ANSF protection insufficient and entered contract talks with an American private security contractor. The source also indicated Uzbek President Islom Karimov had ordered the company to start work immediately in early January.

I wonder why ISAF was unable to be involved?

5. (U) The railroad will be 1520 millimeter gauge, the standard across the former Soviet Union. It will connect with existing Uzbek tracks at Termez, Uzbekistan. This rail line is important to coalition forces in Afghanistan, who hope it can speed up the delivery of crucial supplies through the Northern Distribution Network, routing shipments through the former Soviet states to Afghanistan.

This is where it gets interesting:

Pakistani and Chinese Projects Off the Rails

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6. (C) When China Metalurgical Corporation (MCC) won the tender for Aynak copper mine in 2008, its bid included a promise to build a rail line “associated with the project.” The line would carry copper concentrate and eventually smelted copper to more accessible locations for onward distribution. In January 2010, World-Bank-funded analysts and a private MCC contractor told us the company currently considers the railway not feasible. During a meeting at the mine in September 2009, MCC leadership mentioned what they viewed as “flexible” the requirement to put in the rail, which then-Minister of Mines Adel roundly contradicted, saying the rail was required and “non-negotiable.” A draft of the contract obtained by the Embassy states that “MCC has made a commitment to the Government of Afghanistan to construct, at MCC´s sole expense, a railway associated with the Project…the Parties acknowledge and agree thatthe failure to conclude a railway agreement within this timeframe shall constitute cause for the Parties to revoke this Mining Contract.” In a recent Ambassadorial meeting, Minister of Mines Shahrani said the Aynak contract requires MCC to build “two rail lines” one north and one east, a statement inconsistent with our unofficial copy of the contract. The Embassy and World Bank analysts continue to encourage the Ministry to make the Aynak contract public for transparency reasons. If this occurs, however, the fact that MCC has still not completed an addendum to the contract that would specify when and where rail will be built may provoke controversy.

7. (U) Pakistani media reported January 17 that work on a Quetta-Kandahar rail line would begin soon.

Although it has been going to begin soon for well over 100 years…

The track is complete from Quetta to the Pakistani border at Weesh Chaman, however, the remaining seven kilometers of track to the Afghan border post at Spin Boldak, as well as the remaining 111 kilometers to Kandahar, are “on hold” by the Afghan Ministry of Public Works due to security concerns. Assuming Afghanistan and Pakistan do not build a facility to transfer cargo or change gauges at the border, the rail gauge would be 1,676 millimeters, known as broad gauge, the standard across the Asian sub-continent.

A gauge changer wouldn’t make much sense on a line which only went as far as Spin Boldak.

Hodgepodge Gauges: Problematic but Not the End of the Line

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8. (U) With three different rail gauges potentially entering the country, freight will need to be offloaded at break of gauge or facilities must be built to lift cars from the tracks and change their bogies (the chassis of a railway car.)

As a very minor point of note, the message says “bogies”, rather than the more usual US-English term “trucks”.

Changing the bogies on a 50-car train should take approximately five hours and could coincide with customs processing. However, it will significantly delay future passenger and freight trains if the independent lines ever connect. Dependent on donor funding for its rail development, Afghanistan is presently not in a position to enforce a single national rail gauge and must plan to mitigate the economic impact of multiple gauges. The ADB and other independent studies have recommended that Afghanistan adopt the Russian 1520 millimeter gauge within Afghanistan and install gauge change stations at Herat and Kandahar City. (Note: Dual- or variable-gauge tracks avert the need for specialized facilities but cost significantly more to build. To Post´s knowledge, no donor has expressed interest in funding this additional cost. End note.)

Presumably this is saying 1520 gauge from Hairatan – Mazar-i-Sharif – Herat (interchange with 1435 line to Iran) – Kandahar (interchange with 1676 line to Pakistan). That leaves open the question of the Chinese copper line, were it to be deemed feasible.

9. (U) Rail traffic volumes are also an issue. The general rule of thumb is that a rail line is not economically viable with less than 5 million tons of throughput. Anything less than this is more efficiently handled by trucks.

Anyone got any thoughts on those figures?

The anticipated volumes from and through Afghanistan to Iran fall far short of this.

10. (U) Comment: Many countries, including Australia, Tanzania and Angola, operate railroads of different gauges.

As I understand it Angloa is all 1067 mm (Cape gauge) now. The railways are all independent lines running inland from ports, with little prospect of lines being built parallel to the coast to link them up.

These gauge differences become significant, however, as the number of gauges proliferate within country. On the other hand, even the most far-sighted donor would hesitate to build a link to Afghanistan requiring cargo to be offloaded at its border or the construction of an expensive break of gauge facility. It is clearly in the interests of Afghanistan´s neighbors to seek matching rail gauges within Afghanistan, and, unfortunately, Afghanistan is not in a position to adopt a single common rail gauge that would isolate it from at least half of its neighbors. We are encouraging the Afghan Government to plan wisely when evaluating future rail projects and consider the impact of volume and gauge changes on rail efficiency and economy.
End comment.

11. Embassy Tashkent has cleared this cable.

EIKENBERRY

Code for “we don’t think railways are a good idea”?

There are also cables regarding 05.10.2009: Security and Social Issues at Aynak Copper Mine:

Reportedly, MCC has also signed a memorandum of agreement committing to lay a rail line running north and south, connecting Aynak with the proposed Hajigak iron mine and its associated coking coal mine in Bamyan province.

4. (SBU) During a September 17 [2009] meeting with Mining Minister Adel, Aynak Police Commander Mohammad Mosen, and U.S. military and civilian representatives, MCC-Aynak President Zou suggested that MCC may not build a rail line for Aynak. Minister Adel insisted that MCC has a contractual commitment to install the line, but admitted in a later aside that the rail contract had not yet been signed.

And 10.12.2009: Chinese Firm Re-Thinks Afghan Mining Contract After Difficulties Of The Aynak Copper Mine Project:

[China Metallurgical Group Corporation President Shen Heting told a visiting U.S. delegation] existing roads would be sufficient to transport the copper from the mine and that construction of a railway from the mine to the Pakistan port of Gwadar was not economically justified. However, he reiterated that the Chinese government was urging the company to honor its commitments, suggesting that MCC might eventually build some railway.

China and the Aynak copper mine

Posted on by Andrew Grantham

An interesting NBC article from 2009 discussing China’s involvement in Afghanistan, and the Aynak copper mine in particular.

In addition to setting up the copper production infrastructure, which includes a smelter, power generation station, coal mine and groundwater system, the Chinese joint venture is also building roads, Afghanistan’s first national railway, new homes for villagers who will be resettled from the immediate area of the mine, hospitals and schools.

Source: Resource-hungry China heads to Afghanistan, Adrienne Mong, NBC News, 2009-10-14

Hajigak ore mine rail link plans

Posted on by Andrew Grantham

Afghanistan’s Minister for Mines, Wahidullah Shahrani, speaks to India’s Business Standard about tendering of the Hajigak iron ore mine project, which includes an integrated steel plant that will consume high-grade coking coal from nearby deposits; a road or rail evacuation route.

[…]
China, which was awarded the Aynak copper mines in Loghar province, Afghanistan’s first big sale of mining rights in the post-Taliban era, has undertaken to build a railway line from the northern provinces, to Bamiyan (where Hajigak is located), to Kabul, and then to Torkham on the Pakistan border at the Khyber Pass.

Shahrani believes that a viable alternative that could form the Hajigak evacuation infrastructure would be a railway line running westwards to Iran, along the Zaranj-Delaram highway that India had built in the mid-2000s, to the Iranian port of Chabahar.

Source: New Afghanistan mining projects create opportunity for India, Ajai Shukla, Business Standard, 2011-06-07

China to Afghanistan via Tajikstan

Posted on by Andrew Grantham

Zeitschrift der OSShD is a magazine published six times a year in German, Russian and Chinese versions by OSJD, the Organisation for Co-Operation between Railways. The 2/2011 (316) issue has an article (pp1-6) “Tadjik steel railway lines – conquering the mountain peaks” by Amonullo Hukumatullo, head of Tajikistan’s national railway Rohi Ohani Tojikiston. It gives an overview of the railway company, and includes some information about proposed rail links to Afghanistan.

A map accompanying the OSJD article shows a proposed railway from Kashgar (Kashi) in China to Afghanistan. From Kashgar the line runs though Sary-Taşh in Kyrgyzstan (from where a branch would run north to Osh), crossing the Kyrgyzstan/Tajikistan border near Карамык (Karamyk), meeting the existing line from Душанбе (Dushanbe) at Иляк (Ilyak?) a short distance southeast of Ваҳдат (Vakhdat), then running to Яван (Yavan?), and onwards over a line which is currently under construction1 to reach Курган-Тюбе (Kurgan-Tyube, and countless other romanisations).

Leaving the existing Uzbekistan to Kurgan-Tyube line at Джалоліддіна Румі (Jaloliddina Rumi) a new 59 km line costing USD73.2m will run to the Tajik border post at Нижний Пяндж (Nizhniy Panj, which is the Russian name; it’s Панҷи Поён (Panji Poyon) in Tajik).

(There was once a 750 mm gauge line on this section of the route, built in 1929-31 and opened in early 1932 but closed in the 1990s.2 In 2007 a road bridge was opened over the river Amu or Panj Darya which forms the Tajik-Afghan border, called – inevitably – the “Bridge to Friendship”.)3

The map shows the railway entering Afghanistan at Shirkhan Bandar, and continuing to Kunduz. From Kunduz proposed lines are shown running south to Kabul and the Khyber Pass, with a spur to Aynak for the mine, and also west along the northern corridor to Mazar-i-Sharif, Herat and Iran.

There are the usual comments in the article about transit traffic, and how a line though Afghanistan would would mean [insert name]-stan would not have not send traffic though [next door]-stan in order to reach Iran. Tajikistan currently has three sections of railway, but they run east-west and are not interconnected with each other except through Uzbekistan, and there have been claims that Uzbekistan has been delaying Tajikistan-bound traffic.

The magazine article also discusses the gauge problem, coming down in favour of 1435 mm standard gauge for the China – Iran route, rather than the 1520 mm of the existing lines Tajikistan.

Here is a rough attempt at plotting the places in question on a map.


View China – Tajikistan – Afghanistan railway in a larger map

This posting is based on the German version of the OSJD magazine, because I can read a little German. However the place names in the magazine have gone from Cyrillic (and probably Russian rather than Tajik) to German romanisation, though the map itself is in Cyrillic. While I have tried to sanitise the names, they have possibly got mangled en route. No offence is intended if your favourite spelling has been missed! It doesn’t help that some places have changed their names over the years – while it’s perhaps no surprise that Stalinabad has disappeared from the map (it is now Dushanbe), it is less obvious that Kolkhozobod became Jaloliddina Rumi in 2007, in honour of a C13th poet.

Tajikistan is a bit of an information black hole – I can’t even find many photos of trains there, or an official railway website.

Back in January 2011, Hukumatullo told a news conference that more than 160 000 tons of freight were shipped to Afghanistan via Tajikistan in 2010: Since there is now direct rail link connecting Tajikistan and Afghanistan, the cargo was transported from the Tajik railroad station Kolkhozobod to the Afghan settlement of Sherkhan Bandar by vehicles.4 I suspect now should read no, and vehicles means road vehicles.

  1. Tajikistan: Rail Link to Afghanistan under Construction, 19 March 2009, www.EurasiaNet.org ↩
  2. Road vs. Rail. A Note on Transport Development in Tadzhikistan, MV Hambly, Soviet Studies Vol. 19, No. 3 (Jan., 1968), pp. 421-425, Taylor & Francis Ltd ↩
  3. News: Afghanistan, Tajikistan dedicate ‘Bridge to Friendship’, 3 September 2007, Combined Joint Task Force – 82 PAO, DVIDS ↩
  4. More than 160,000 tons of cargo shipped to Afghanistan via Tajik territory, 20 January 2011, Payrav Corshanbiyev, ASIA-Plus news agency, Dushanbe ↩

Vivid evidence for brotherly assistance from neutral Turkmenistan

Posted on by Andrew Grantham

Afghanistan’s President Hamid Karzai made an official visit to Turkmenistan on 28 May 2011. He discussed the Atamurat to Andkhoy railway proposal with Turkmenistan’s President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov, and a “framework agreement” on its construction was signed.

A rather magnificently wordy report on the visit was published the following day by the official new agency “Turkmenistan: the golden age”:

President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov invited his Afghan counterpart to enter the Golden Hall where the one to one top level talks were held.
[…]
Along with natural wealth, including abundant energy resources, Turkmenistan situated on transport routes from north to south and from east to west had the profound potential for collaboration in the transit transport sector due to its geographical location. In this contest the Turkmen leader dwelt upon the aspects of bilateral cooperation on the construction of a railway line from Turkmenistan to Afghanistan. In this context President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov expressed belief that this railway would facilitate freight traffic in the Asian region and all over the world.
[…]
[Karzai noted that] Currently, the construction of a railway line that would connect our states was being negotiated.
[…]
After the ceremony of signing documents was concluded, the leaders of Turkmenistan and the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan entered the Bayram Khan Hall where they held a press conference.
[…]
Expressing profound gratitude to President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov for paying much attention to the aspects of intergovernmental cooperation, the distinguished guest put particular emphasis on the Resolution issued by the national leader Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov aimed at increasing electricity exports to Afghanistan and the initiative of the leader of the Turkmen state to build a railway line from Turkmenistan to Afghanistan.
[…]
After the talks with the participation of the government delegations were concluded the ceremony of signing the bilateral document took place in the Seljuk Khan Hall.

These included […] the Framework Agreement on the construction of the Atamurat-Ymamnazar (Turkmenistan)-Akina-Andhoi (the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan) between the Government of Turkmenistan and the Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan;
[…]
Upon concluding the official reception, the leaders of the two states bade farewell cordially to each other expressing satisfaction with the outcomes of the talks and exchanged the best wishes to the brotherly nations.

Source: Talks between President of Turkmenistan and President of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, State News Agency of Turkmenistan, 2011-05-29.

Here is a map I made for a previous posting on the project:

View Turkmenistan – Andkhoy railway plan in a larger map

Maps of Afghan rail projects

Posted on by Andrew Grantham

The Ministry of Mines website now features a new photo gallery with some maps of proposed railways.

Map of major rail developments in Afghanistan

The National Resource Corridors map includes a Kabul to Kandahar railway “to be studied”. Historically this route was seen as a priority for developing a national rail network, but in recent years the focus has been on the more stable north of the country.

Map of national resource corridors in Afghanistan

The Regional Rail Networks map shows how things fit into the bigger picture. The Kazakhstan – Turkmenistan – Iran line paralleling the Caspian Sea appears to be absent, although recent news reports suggest part of it will open by October this year.

Map of railways in Afghanistan and surrounding countries

Pakistan – Afghanistan feasibility studies

Posted on by Andrew Grantham

Peshawar-Jalalabad railway route

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Railways (PR) has completed a feasibility report of the Chaman-Qandahar railway track and it has now requested the World Bank to assist in the feasibility of the Peshawar-Jalalabad route.

Director Planning Ministry of Railways Aftab Akbar told APP that the PR’s top priority is rehabilitation, upgradation of infrastructure and lying of new tracks with an aim to be a hub of economic activities for regional countries.

[More about Pakistan Railways’ plans]

Source: The News International, 2011-03-28

In January 2010 a Chaman – Kandahar study was reported as having been submitted to the Afghan government.

Railway not in use yet

Posted on by Andrew Grantham

“Hairatan-Mazar Railway Not Yet Utilised” writes Tamim Shaheer at Tolo News on 12 April 2011.

The work of the railway connecting Hairatan border with the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif has not been completed as planned. … The Afghan Ministry of Public Works said an operational team is to come to Afghanistan from the neighboring Uzbeskistan to help speed up the work.

The Ministry says the construction company is to employ 600 workers soon to complete the project so that the railway can be utilised soon.

[More…]