{"id":5349,"date":"2013-03-17T11:51:47","date_gmt":"2013-03-17T11:51:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.andrewgrantham.co.uk\/afghanistan\/?p=5349"},"modified":"2013-10-09T19:23:03","modified_gmt":"2013-10-09T18:23:03","slug":"torghundi-railway-opening-date","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrantham.co.uk\/afghanistan\/torghundi-railway-opening-date\/","title":{"rendered":"Torghundi railway opening date"},"content":{"rendered":"

The short rail link from Serhertabat in Turkmenistan to Torghundi in Afghanistan<\/a> has a much lower profile than the railway from Uzbekistan, presumably because of its back-of-beyond location and the general inaccessibility of Turkmenistan.<\/p>\n

But it would appear that this was the first main line railway into Afghanistan. So when did it open? Presumably news from a remote border of the Soviet Union wasn’t plentiful at the time it did open, and modern mentions of the railway take a vague guess at little more the Soviet era, but can it be pinned down more accurately?<\/p>\n

It certainly predates the Friendship Bridge line from Uzbekistan:<\/p>\n

\nA provincial Soviet newspaper reported in November that work was under way on the “seventh span” of a road-and-rail bridge between the Soviet and Afghan banks of the Amu Darya. “It is planned to open traffic on the new bridge in May 1982,” the report said.
\n[…]
\nThe railway station at Towraghondi, on Afghanistan’s northwest border with the Soviet Union, is being rebuilt<\/strong> with Soviet help.
\nSource: Soviets’ second front in Afghanistan<\/a>, Ned Temko, Staff correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor 4 December 1981<\/cite>\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It seems the railway appears in a Russian Central Studio of Documentary Films production about Soviet assistance to Afghanistan, “Over the Highest Mountains<\/a>” (\u0412\u044b\u0448\u0435 \u0441\u0430\u043c\u044b\u0445 \u0432\u044b\u0441\u043e\u043a\u0438\u0445 \u0433\u043e\u0440). The Net Film webpage says the film is from 1960, but it includes “Khrushchev’s stay in Afghanistan (March, 1961.)”, so something isn’t quite right. <\/p>\n

UPDATE: Khrushchev’s visit was in March 1960, his first visit to Afghanistan since 1955.1<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

This is a section of the English description, with the Russian words interspersed where the translation is a bit odd: <\/p>\n

Reel 2
\nDescription<\/p>\n

Prime Minister of Afghanistan – Mohammed Daoud Khan has arrived in Turgundi station [\u0441\u0442\u0430\u043d\u0446\u0438\u044e] to meet one of the first waggonages [\u0441\u043e\u0441\u0442\u0430\u0432\u043e\u0432, Google Translate of the Russian text says “trains”] which has arrived from the USSR. <\/p>\n

A waggonage with vehicles, machines, road machinery is moving along a new railway road. <\/p>\n

The road machinery designated for construction of Kushka-Terat-Kandahar highway, is being reloaded from platforms [\u043f\u043b\u0430\u0442\u0444\u043e\u0440\u043c – flat wagon] to lorries. <\/p>\n

A panorama of the reloading station \u2013 Turgundi.<\/p>\n

Source: Over the Highest Mountains<\/a>, Net Film<\/cite>\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

UPDATE: The text seems to have changed since I drafted the above post, and now says:<\/p>\n

\nDelivery of goods from the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, a new overland – by rail, going across the border to the border of the village Turgundi – the general plan.<\/p>\n

Part of the railway – the average plan.<\/p>\n

Composition is the engineer Ivanov.<\/p>\n

Trains with goods in transit.
\nSource: Over the Highest Mountains<\/a>, Net Film<\/cite>\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Mohammed Daoud Khan was Prime Minister from 7 September 1953 to 10 March 1963, which suggests the railway opened at some point 1953-1960. <\/p>\n

\u0422\u0440\u0430\u043d\u0441\u043f\u043e\u0440\u0442\u043d\u0430\u044f \u0431\u043b\u043e\u043a\u0430\u0434\u0430 \u0410\u0444\u0433\u0430\u043d\u0438\u0441\u0442\u0430\u043d\u0430<\/a> is a Russian language article dated 20 May 2011, which says (thanks to Google Translate and a bit of guesswork) that the line was “built to facilitate the delivery of equipment and materials in the construction of highways Kushka – Herat – Kandahar”.<\/p>\n

So if we can work out when the road works were undertaken, we might be able to pin down a date for the railway.<\/p>\n

\n
<\/div>\n
    \n
  1. Russians in Afghanistan, The Guardian, 3 March 1960, p10 ↩<\/a><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    The short rail link from Serhertabat in Turkmenistan to Torghundi in Afghanistan has a much lower profile than the railway from Uzbekistan, presumably because of its back-of-beyond location and the general inaccessibility of Turkmenistan. But it would appear that this was the first main line railway into Afghanistan. So when did it open? Presumably news […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,5],"tags":[184],"class_list":["post-5349","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-afghanistans-railways","category-history","tag-towraghondi"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrantham.co.uk\/afghanistan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5349","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrantham.co.uk\/afghanistan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrantham.co.uk\/afghanistan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrantham.co.uk\/afghanistan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrantham.co.uk\/afghanistan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5349"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrantham.co.uk\/afghanistan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5349\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5544,"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrantham.co.uk\/afghanistan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5349\/revisions\/5544"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrantham.co.uk\/afghanistan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrantham.co.uk\/afghanistan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrantham.co.uk\/afghanistan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}