Afghan railroads, past, present and future
Shahid Javed Burki considers how the role of railways in (what is now) Pakistan has changed over the years in a 12 May 2009 Dawn article For a new transport policy
It is always useful to reflect on history before planning for the future. I will illustrate this point today by using the case of the transport infrastructure. Three legacies must be recognised to deal with the situation as it exists today and for the adoption of a strategy that would serve the future.
Source: Dawn 2009-05-12
The achievements and embarrassments of Zardari visit
By Shaheen Sehbai
WASHINGTON: Three major outcomes of the bilateral and trilateral summit talks between Presidents Zardari, Obama and Karzai are now becoming visible as officials of the three countries hammer out details of how much money would be poured in, how it would be spent and how it would be monitored.
…One solid suggestion made by a Pakistani official, got immense attention and generated an intense discussion in one of these meetings. It was to build a railway track from the port of Gwadar to Peshawar, passing through the mainland of Balochistan and along the western side of Pakistan, then going into Afghanistan through the dormant Peshawar-Torkham rail link and to Kabul onwards through Jalalabad.
This idea was also presented to President Zardari by an American expert, the Pakistan Embassy sources revealed. Zardari was excited about it as the project could involve billions of dollars that the US was ready to invest, it would revive Pakistan’s industry and economy, it could bring Balochistan into the mainstream by generating jobs and providing them goodies coming out of the project, it could spur construction industry by building hundreds of railway stations and other facilities needed and it could provide Pakistan an alternate route from Karachi to Peshawar.
For Afghanistan, as well it could be a booster as the rail link could enter Afghanistan at the south-eastern border with Pakistan and could be carried to any place inside Afghanistan by US dollars, lessening the dependence on transit trade through troubled Fata and Taliban-infested areas. It also fits the US goal of joint Af-Pak development, serving the US as well as Pak-Afghan interests.
Source: The News International 2009-05-10
Islamabad Declaration
The delegates participating in the Third Regional Economic Cooperation Conference on Afghanistan having met in Islamabad on 13 – 14 May 2009:
…NOTE THAT
Transport, Trade, Energy Cooperation, Agricultural Cooperation, Capacity Building and Education, Border Management, Health, Counter Narcotics and Refugee Return and Reintegration are areas with considerable scope for mutually beneficial regional cooperation.Connectivity: Increased trade in the region will be facilitated by affording Afghanistan easy accessibility to the Sea, developing east-west and north-south corridors on the basis of mutual agreement, and further developing infrastructure links with Afghanistan and its neighbours.
Railway connection between Iran and Herat is already on going on the basis of a grant from the Government of Islamic Republic of Iran.
An 80 km railway link from Hairatan (on the Uzbekistan border) to Mazar-e-Sharif is considered a priority route for development. The planned link forms part of CAREC’s Transport and Trade Facilitation Strategy, and is in accordance with Afghanistan’s Railways Development Programme. The project will be developed with Asian Development Bank grant support.
…
HAVE DECIDED THAT
…
4. High priority will be accorded, in terms of resource allocation and political commitment to the following set of practical short-term projects of benefit to Afghanistan and the region:
a. Concluding negotiations of the Afghanistan Pakistan Trade and Transit Agreement before the end of 2009, as agreed earlier this month in Washington, DC.
b. Extension of rail link from Chaman to Kandahar.
c. In addition, the European Commission will conduct a pre-feasibility study of railways across Afghanistan linking major destinations within Afghanistan and its neigbours.
…
Read in full on the Ministry of Foreign Affairswebsite.
(thanks to Michael G Erickson for sending me a link)
In November 2008 Hail Ghulam Ahmad Bilour, Pakistan’s Railways Minister, told the National Assembly that two studies for railways were being considered.
One plan is to revive the long-standing proposal to extend the Pakistan Railways network by about 10 miles from the current terminus at Chamman to reach Spin Boldak across the border in Afghanistan, providing a railhead for Kandahar.
The other plan is much more substantial, being a 662 km link from Havelian in Pakistan to China via the Khunjerab Pass, which reaches an altitude of 4700 m. However it had been said in September that this route was not commercially feasible.
Pak-China rail link pre-feasibility study completed, National Assembly told
…
Bilour told the house in response to a question raised by MNAs including Fauzia Wahab, Muhammad Asad Khan, Yasmeen Rehman and Shereen Arshad Khan, that the PC-I for Chaman Spinbuldak (Afghanistan bordering town) rail link was completed with the cost of Rs 417 million in June 2004 and the project was to be executed by M/s Railcop, however, work could not be started due to non-issuance of NOC by Afghanistan government. The revised cost of PC-l is now assessed Rs 943.00 million, he added.He said that the Pak-China Rail link pre-feasibility study has been completed through two consulting firms M/s L.L.F of German-Austria and M/s Don fang Electric Corporation (DEC) of China and following route has been recommended for detailed feasibility. Havelian-AbbotAbad – Batagram – Thakot-Bridge-Bèsham-Pattan -Dassu-Chillas – Gilgit-Karimabad – Sost-Mintaka Pass. The length of this route is 662 km and tentative cost is US $10.237 billion to be completed in 15 years, he informed.
[More]
Source: Business Recorder, 2008-11-11
There are more details of the feasibility studies in the February 2007 Asia Times Online article China-Pakistan rail link on horizon, by Syed Fazl-e-Haider. This says:
As a part of its development plan for its transport and communications network, Pakistan Railways has completed a feasibility study of the Chaman-Kandahar section for laying railway tracks between Pakistan and Turkmenistan through Afghanistan.
Source: Asia Times Online, 2007-02-24
The 2nd Meeting of Railway Committee of TTCC
(The ECO Secretariat, Tehran, 12 December, 2008)
The 2nd Meeting of Railway Committee of TTCC was held at the ECO Secretariat on 12 December, 2008. Delegations of Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Iran, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkey and Uzbekistan participated in the Meeting. Delegations from the People’s Republic of China and the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) also attended the Meeting.
The Meeting discussed cooperation between the ECO and UNECE on implementation of railway-related articles of Transit Transport Framework Agreement (TTFA) and important UNECE agreements. Those included the European Agreement on Important International Transport Links and Related Installations (AGTC) and the European Agreement on the Main International Railway Links (AGC). Possibilities of participation of the ECO in Phase II of the Euro-Asian Transport Links (EATL) Project were also considered.
The meeting discussed three important projects for improving the regional railway network in the ECO region. These included upgrading the capacity of Sarakhs Station in Iran, improving the Quetta–Taftan Railway in Pakistan and constructing railway bypass around Van Lake in Turkey.
In order to materialize operation of the ECO Container Train on Istanbul-Tehran-Islamabad route, the Meeting requested Iran, Pakistan and Turkey to expedite holding a High Level Expert Group Meeting and a Meeting of the concerned Ministers to decide on technical, operational and other aspects of this important initiative. It was hoped that a demonstration train from Islamabad to Istanbul would be launched in 2009.
The Meeting considered ways to have the Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan and Afghanistan connected to the ECO regional railway routes. The said member states would prepare detailed reports on the proposed routes, technical requirement, and expected cargo volumes.
The Meeting worked out the procedures for publishing ECO Railway Transit Routes Maps and the updated Railway Network Map.
Source: Economic Cooperation Organization press release, 2008-12-12
Afghanistan Railways: a dream coming true is an October 2004 article by S Azam Ali for the Pakistani newspaper Dawn. Availing of the second Afghan-British War, Russians stitched the great deserts of Central Asia with rail tracks. When the British came to know of the Russian success in the occupation of Marv in 1883, they reviewed and revived the Kandhar State Railway extension from Sibi to Quetta and Chaman.
A dream of the Kandhar Railway in the middle of the 19th century seems to be realized in the 21st century with the change of political scenario from the conflict to cooperation in this most sensitive region. This has become possible with practical move for the regional connectivity project to be undertaken jointly by Afghanistan and Pakistan for railway from Chaman (Pakistan) to Kandhar (Afghanistan) as one of the components of a compact and comprehensive rail road mega programme for 10-member countries in the ECO region.
Announcing a Rs3 billion package for Balochistan, through which the Pakistan Railways would penetrate into Afghanistan via Chaman-Kandhar rail route, Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz added that paper work on the track had been completed. Work on it would begin soon. It would usher in, a new era for economic cooperation between Pakistan, Afghanistan and eight other ECO-member countries in the field of train traffic for the region sprawling over an area of more than seven million sq kms.
[more]
Source: Dawn
All Things Pakistan has some some bad news from August about damage to the Khyber Pass railway – an historic bridge has been washed away by the 2008 monsoon season rains.
Extensive damage to the track had also occured in 2006 and 2007.
Speaking to the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation’s Heads of State Summit in Colombo last week, Afghan President Hamid Karzai said
As part of the contract with a Chinese consortium for the exploration of the Aynak copper deposit, a railway line will be constructed which will connect Central Asia to South Asia, thereby expediting the transport of people and goods within the region and beyond.
The suggestions of passenger transport, and a through north-south link, are interesting.
The project was announced last November. A consortim of China Metallurgical Group Corporation and Jiangxi Copper Co would build a railway line from the town of Hairatan on the Amu Darya bordering Uzbekistan, through Logar and to Torkham on the Pakistan border to export the minerals
.
Some old articles from Railway Gazette regarding a unrealised 1960s scheme for a rail link from the Pakistan Railways railhead at Chaman to Spin Boldak, a short distance across the border in Afghanistan.
Spin Boldak is a major border crossing point, and it seems that railway extension plans have been talked about every so often.
20 May 1966
Talks between Afghanistan and Pakistan were held on May 4 1966 regarding building a railway to Spin Baldak. 
2 September 1966
Construction to Spin Baldak “is to begin soon”.
17 May 1968
Bad news: the Spinbaldak scheme, which was to have been financed by the US Agency for International Development, has been abandoned.
(clippings © Railway Gazette International)
A news report which is floating round the web
Plan Ready To Make Balochistan Rail Link For Central Asia
QUETTA, Oct 26 Asia Pulse – [Pakistan’s] federal government has prepared a blueprint for Balochistan to make it a rail bridge for Pakistan trade and a traffic corridor connecting it to Iran, Turkey, Europe and Central Asia.
According to official sources, Pakistan Railway’s blueprints provide for rail access from Gwadar, Pakistan’s third deep seaport along Arabian Sea, to Afghanistan and Central Asian Republics as well as Russia on one side.On the other side, they said, Gwadar would have a rail link with Iran, Turkey, Europe and beyond. Both these vital rail links would go through southern, central and northern Balochistan. The blueprints show a link between Gwadar-Mastung-Taftan and Zahidan (Iran) on one hand, while on the other from Gwadar to Kandahar (southern Afghanistan) via Mastung-Quetta-Chaman-Spinboldak.
The sources added that at present Gwadar had no rail network, therefore, the government had decided to build 940-kilometer broad gauge from Gwadar (southern Balochistan) to Mastung (central Balochistan) at an estimated cost of Rs75 billion. Mastung is already connected with Quetta on the main line linking Pakistan with Iran via Taftan and Zahidan (Iran). The Quetta-Taftan-Zahidan section (612-km) though Mastung is in process of upgrading to international standard.
Such standard would be at par with Iranian railways, already catering for passengers and freight services to Turkey and the European countries, they added. They said the PR had already set aside a sum of Rs10billion for upgrading of Quetta-Taftan-Zahidan section.