Projects

Jalalabad railway survey

Posted on by Andrew Grantham

A survey for a railway from Peshawar in Pakistan to Jalalabad in Afghanistan is to be launched soon, reports The News International1 citing an Afghan Ministry of Public Works press release (which I can’t seem to find) of Wednesday 4 May 2016. Rs60 million has been allocated and a private firm has been engaged to conduct the eight-month survey for the line, which the head of the (unspecified) company in Afghanistan, Wahidullah Oryakhel said would be 150 km long, with 75 km in Nangarhar province. Pakistan is providing financial assistance for the project.

Busines Recorder says the consultancy is Umar Munshi Associates of Karachi.2

The reports do not say whether this proposal would involve reviving the moribund and flood damaged Khyber Pass Railway, or building a new line through the Shilman Valley.

Herat to Torghundi railway study comissioned

Posted on by Andrew Grantham

On 4 April 2016 Afghanistan's Ministry of Public Works signed a contract for Canarail to undertake a technical feasibility study for a railway from Herat to Torghundi

On 4 April 2016 Afghanistan’s Ministry of Public Works signed a contract for Canadian consultancy Canarail to undertake a technical feasibility study for a proposed railway which would run from Herat to the Turkmenistan Railways railhead and freight yard at Torghundi.1 The study is expected to take six months to complete, with the Asian Development Bank covering the US$$1,603,500 cost.2

Contract between MoPW and Canarail International Company for economic and technical studies of Herat – Torghondi project has been signed.

H.E. Eng. Mahmoud Baligh, Minister of Public Works said “this railway project involves five countries as of China, Kazakhstan [sic; the Persian-language version of the announcement appears to say Kyrgyzstan, which would make more sense], Tajikistan, Iran and Afghanistan, which connect Asia to Europe through Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan. Although Afghanistan is a mountainous country & developing road network is very challenging, but to become a part of transit countries which is our historic and old vision so we have to develop the railway network to reach major economic powers, this issue for increasing domestic revenues and enhance economic growth plays a major role”.

Mentioned project takes 200 km length and will last 6 months to construct and cost $ 1.6 Million USD which is funded by Asian Development Bank.

Source: Contract of Technical and Economic studies of (Herat – Torghondi railway) has been signed, Ministry of Public Works, 5 April 2016

This seems to be referring to the Five Nations railway plan for a corridor from China to Central Asia, Afghanistan and Iran. It is not clear what the 200 km refers to; Herat to the border is about 80 km in a straight line. US$1.6m might fund the technical study, but wouldn’t cover much construction work.

The gauge is not specified. Torghondi is the gateway to the 1520 mm network in the former USSR, however a 1435 mm gauge line is under construction from Iran to Herat.

In December 2013 the Ministry of Public Works had appointed Canarail and Appleton Consulting to undertake a 12-month study of the feasibility of extending the Hairatan to Mazar-i-Sharif railway around 225 km west to Sheberghan, Andkhoy and Aqina, and around 50 km northeast to the border with Tajikistan.

Historical note

During the 19th Century Great Game era there was concern in Britain that Russia might one day build a rail link from the Trans-Caspian Railway to Herat, which it was feared would be a useful base for any Russian advance on India. British strategists – serious and armchair – debated the merits of building a railway to Kandahar as a counter-move. It was reported that the Russians had a stockpile of railway materials at Kushka (now Serhetabat) which would have enabled them to build a line to Herat in a hurry, and the British set up a supply depot at Chaman on the Indian frontier containing the track components which would be required for their line to Kandahar.

References

Afghanistan National Railway Plan at the CAREC Railway Working Group

Posted on by Andrew Grantham

The First Meeting of the Central Asia Regional Economic Cooperation organisation’s Railway Working Group was held on Tokyo on 24-26 November 2015. The CAREC Railway Working Group was formed after the 14th CAREC Transport Sector Coordinating Committee Meeting which was held in Ulaanbaatar on 28-29 April 2015, and aims to guide the development of a short and medium-term railway strategy for the CAREC region.

Afghanistan National Railway Plan map

The presentations from the meeting can be downloaded from the CAREC website, and have a lot of interesting information about railways in the CAREC member countries.

Day 1 featured a presentation on the Afghanistan National Railway Plan and Way Forward by Mohammad Yamma Shams, Director General & Chief Executive Officer of the Afghanistan Railway Authority. This sets out current thinking under AfRA’s Afghanistan National Railway Plan, and the status of the various proposals for a 5500 km network.

ADB suspends TAT railway funding

Posted on by Andrew Grantham

According to a news report, on 15 December 2015 the Asian Development Bank’s Country Director for Tajikistan, Si Si Yu, told reporters that ADB had suspended its financial support for the construction of the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Tajikistan railway owing to security risks.1

“Although Turkmenistan has completed construction of its section of the railway, we do not intend to finance construction of a railway in country where (Afghanistan) security is not guaranteed,” Yu said. “It’s very risky.” He said the ADB would “probably” return to the project “when the security situation in Afghanistan improves.”

I can’t spot any other reports on this, or an official announcement from ADB.

References

  1. ADB cuts support for construction of Afghan railway, Harun Varlı, Videonews, 16 December 2015 ↩

Turkmenistan’s Afghan border rail link nears completion

Posted on by Andrew Grantham


View Turkmenistan – Andkhoy railway plan in a larger map

Turkmenistan has completed construction of the 85 km Atamurat1 – Imamnazar2 section of the future Turkmenistan – Afghanistan – Tajikistan railway, Trend News Agency reports,3 citing a message from the Turkmen government (I can’t find this message – does anyone know if it is available online?).

Construction of the line was ceremonially launched on 5 June 2013. Earthworks are visible on Google Maps satellite photos, running in a straight line southwest from Atamurat.

Trend says two bridges and two stations are still to be completed, along with the final 3 km from Imamnazar in Turkmenistan across the border to Akina4 in Afghanistan. A planned 35 km continuation within Afghanistan would take the line to Andkhoy.

In the longer term, this line would be extended though northern Afghanistan to Tajikistan. “Commissioning of the railway will make this route an inseparable link of the modern ramified transport and communications infrastructure in the Asian region”, Turkmenistan’s official new agency said in September 2015.5

According to Turkmenistan’s offical website Golden Age, President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov and President of Afghanistan Ashraf Ghani recently had a telephone conversation “on the initiative of the Afghan side”. During this conversation, Ghani “expressed his heartfelt gratitude to the Turkmen leader for laying a section of Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Tajikistan railway to the border of Afghanistan”.6

References

  1. Also written Atamyrat; formerly known as Kerki ↩
  2. Also written Ymamnazar, etc ↩
  3. Turkmenistan builds railway to Afghan borders, Huseyn Hasanov, Trend News Agency, 17 November 2015 ↩
  4. Also written Aqina, Acqina etc ↩
  5. President of Turkmenistan received the governmental delegation of Afghanistan, Türkmen döwlet habarlar agentligi, 17 September 2015 ↩
  6. Telephone conversation between the leaders of Turkmenistan and Afghanistan, The Golden Age, 9 November 2015 ↩

Khyber Railway revival?

Posted on by Andrew Grantham

Steam train in Khyber Pass

“A railway track, spanning 145 kilometers, from Peshawar to Jalalabad is likely to be laid soon. Authorities are in the process of awarding contract for this ambitious project”, reports Afghan Zaria.1

The report says the government of Pakistan’s 2015-16 budget has allocated 620m rupees for a nine-month feability study, which would involve engineers from Pakistan and Afghanistan. NESpak, Mines Construction, Mine Hart, ILF (LIK), MMBP, Usmania Associates Karachi and “a company from China” have submitted tenders. Tracklaying could begun in 2017-18.

The request for proposals was issued in March 2015.

This is not the first time a railway to Jalalabad has been proposed, but so far railways have never crossed the border from the Khyber Pass into Afghanistan.

References

Photos from the Northern Afghanistan Railway Study

Posted on by Andrew Grantham

Turkmenistan – Afghanistan railway under construction

Posted on by Andrew Grantham

45 km of the Atamyrat (formerly Kerki) to Ymamnazar (Imamnazar) section of the Turkmenistan – Afghanistan – Tajikistan railway had been laid as of June 30, Turkmenistan: the Golden Age reported on 30 June 2015.

Construction of the line was ceremonially launched on 5 June 2013. In January 2014 it had been reported that the 85 km section could be completed by June 2015.

ACI design manager visits Canarail

Posted on by Andrew Grantham

Appleton Consulting Inc. is pleased to announce that one of its principal staff – Hasaun Shahir – as National Railway Track Design Engineer had been invited by its partner CANARAIL consulting head office to Montreal, Quebec (Canada) on the Northern Afghanistan Railway Study project.

The purpose of the visit was to coordinate and discuss various disciplines of the project and ensure everything was going well as per the client’s requirements.

[more…]

Source: ACI’s Design Manager Visits Canadian Strategic Partner’s Railway Design Team in Canada, Appleton Consulting Inc, 21 June 2015

CAREC railway plans

Posted on by Andrew Grantham

The 14th CAREC Transport Sector Coordinating Committee Meeting was held in Ulaanbaatar on 28-29 April 2015. Its webpage links to various presentations, which seem to contain some good stuff about Afghan and Central Asian railway development plans in a mixture of English and Russian.

One presentation by Kubatbek Rakhimov covers the Railway Development in Central Asia. The review of the Soviet period up to the present. This provides a quick overview of the strategic issues, in particular the problems arrising as a result of the unified Soviet rail network being fragmented as the USSR disolved and the newly-independent countries focused on building bypasses with their territory rather than on developing international corridors.

There was a presentation on the future CAREC railway network by ADB consultant Thomas Kennedy. This says the “new railway country of Afghanistan offers new route potential”. It explains that CAREC railways are still in the transition from a command economy to a market-based structure, while road transport is becoming more competitive, and there is a shift in trading partners and routes as China gains economic significance. There is a need to agree on a near-term strategic vision for CAREC railways, which also need changes in four primary areas: political/institutional, infrastructure, intergration/interoperability, technical. The most critical aspect is that railways need to understand the costs of their own services, as this is essential for setting pricing policies, business agreements and track access charges.

Kennedy concludes by saying the next step should be to identify a “designated rail corridor” for development as a pilot. This sounds like the situation in the EU, where it became apparent that it makes more sense to focus on international corridors, rather than on separate national projects which could end up leaving bottlenecks on important routes.

The CAREC Working Group on Railways sets out timescales, and sets out a two year timescale for the Khorgas – Tashkent – Termez – Mazar-i-Sharif or Aqina – Turkmenabat – Ashgabat – Aktau routes.