News and information about railroads in Iraq
Collector of Iraqi railway stamps Rainer Fuchs e-mails to highlight an article on the Iraq The Lasting Love blog, about the history and legends of the old al Sarrafiya bridge in Baghdad, which was blown up on April 12.
The bridge formerly carried a metre-gauge railway. The book Middle East Railways by Hugh Hughes says the bridge was built by London firm Holloway Bros, and opened to rail traffic in October 1950, replacing a wagon ferry which could just manage about 72 four-wheelers a day.
Federal News Radio has an AP photo by Hameed Rasheed showing a wrecked station building. The caption says Two people look through the ruins of a damaged train station building after U.S. warplanes and helicopters shelled al-Abbasiya railway, near Samarra 95 kilometers (60 miles) north of Baghdad, Iraq, on this Monday, June 4, 2007
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Marine Corps Times has a little more information: Two Iraqi men stand in the ruins of a building after a U.S. air strike on the al-Abbasiya railway, about 60 miles north of Baghdad on June 4. The American warplanes and helicopters shelled al-Abbasiya railway, and later the land forces attacked the station, killing four people including two women and detaining 20 people, police said.
Neil Robinson of World Rail Atlas Ltd has produced a fantastic book, a detailed atlas of pretty much all railways to have existed in the Middle East.
There are colour maps, distances, and tables of opening and closing dates, and chronologies of related political and historical information. This isn’t just about the main lines – it includes some wonderfully obscure military and industrial lines as well.
It’s well worth a look!
The January 2007 issue of the industry magazine Railway Gazette International has an illustrated article about progress with the construction of a rail link to fill in the gap between Iran and Pakistan. At the moment a Pakistan Railways broad gauge line runs to across the border into Iran as far as Zahedan, but RAI doesn’t yet join up with it from the west.
The article Closing the gap from Bam to Zahedan is written by Dr John Stubbs, who has travelled from London to Mumbai by train (and bus).
The always-useful Seat61 warns Trains run Quetta – Zahedan (Iran) twice a month. However, in October 2006 it’s reported that these trains have been stopped because of repeated bomb attacks. Alternative buses may be available, please check locally.
Rainer Fuchs e-mailed with links to two YouTube movies showing a British Pathe film of Iraq in 1954.
Part 1 shows one of the Robert Stephenson & Hawthorns streamlined pacific locomotives in action, along with a steam loco shunting in Basra, assorted buses and some BOAC aeroplanes.
Part 2 is more about the history. No railway content, but still worth a watch. They don’t film ’em like that anymore.
The November 2006 issue of American magazine Railway Age has a report from former KCS dispatcher, locomotive leasing/maintenance specialist, and Trains magazine editor Mark Hemphill
, who has been in Iraq as senior railway consultant for the U.S. Department of State’s Iraq Reconstruction Management Office
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It is a very interesting read, describing the scale of the problems faced by IRR, in particular with security.
On the record . . . with railroader Mark W. Hemphill
There have been 1 500-plus attacks on IRR fixed plant, concentrated in areas where there is no local control. Some 90% of attacks use IEDs (improvised explosive devices) placed on the track. Crews go out daily to repair the two to five meters of damage the devices generally cause.
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Another 7% of attacks are from small-arms fires (firing at trains or repairmen), and 3%, complex attacks using IEDs, small-arms fires, grenades, and machine guns.
Passenger trains are not attacked, according to Hemphill, because “everything in Iraq is local, family, tribal. You don’t attack because your mother-in-law is onboard.”
A 1998 article on what remains of the railways in Lebanon, and lots of photos of rolling stock at Tripoli station and in Jounieh March 2000.
A note on locos from Gordon Mott, Principal Railway Advisor – CPA (2003-4).
At least two of the 2300 MLW’s were still in service in early 2004 in Mosul and I was told a third was as well. Recent movement reports indicate that 2303 at least remains in service today. They rarely venture outside station limits and clearly are on their last legs. Additionally, I was told [on April 8 2006] by the chief loco guy that three of the five 2100’s are still in the enginehouse at Ramadi West. The other two were destroyed years ago. These are reportedly the all-time favorite locomotives of IRR drivers, and the chief of drivers who was sitting across the table as we were having this discussion agreed as he had been one of the regular drivers of them. Incidentally, these are the only IRR diesels to have also carried names, including “Baghdad”, “Mosul” and others.
In some better news, Payvand’s Iran News reports
Tehran, 28 January 2006 (CHN) — Khoramshahr city in Khuzestan province is going to be connected to Basra through a railway line.
“Based on an agreement between Iran Ministry of Road and Transportation and Iraqi authorities, Iran and Iraq will construct railways to be connected to each other,” said Seyed Ali Akbar Mousavi, director of Arvand Free Zone Project.
The route of the railway will start from Khoramshahr, continue to the border city of Shalamcheh and then will connect to the city of Basra in Iraq. It was agreed that Iran be in charge of constructing the Khoramshahr-Shalamcheh railway while Iraq will build the Shalamcheh-Basra railway.
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Constructions of the said railways are expected to be completed by March 2007.
The Christian Science Monitor has a 1 March 2006 article on the current rather sorry state of IRR, with quotes on what has happened from some names which might be familar to readers of this site.
Those trains that do operate, do so infrequently. A ticket costs just 750 Iraqi dinars (50 cents), making it the cheapest form of transport, but few are willing to brave the journey. Just three largely empty passenger trains a week make the round trip from Baghdad to the northern city of Mosul. There’s an additional passenger train that makes erratic trips between the province of Babel, just south of Baghdad, and Basra. Freight trains, the backbone of the railways, are even scarcer.
The tracks are in such poor condition that the trains travel at half speed, just 40 km/h. What should be a six-hour trip to Mosul, instead takes 10.