Author: Andrew Grantham

Iraqi railways video

Posted on by Andrew Grantham

Alive in Baghdad employs Iraqi journalists to produce video packages each week about a variety of topics on daily life in Iraq, and this week has a short video on Iraq’s railways, subtitled in English. Through the work of a team of Americans and Iraqi correspondents on the ground, Alive in Baghdad shows the conflict through the voices of Iraqis.

The video includes footage of Dalian diesel locomotives in action in Baghdad, and a still picture of a British-built 8F steam loco.

100 Years Later, Iraq Railroad Still Runs

VIDEO – Iraq, Baghdad – The railroad in Iraq has a long history of wars and occupations, in the 1920s the railroads tracks were used by the British forces for transporting military supplies from London to Baghdad during the British occupation and it was well known with the name “Orient Express”

The greatest era of the Iraqi railway was during the 1970s. Iraq imported new trains at that time and developed a new international schedule, with trains leaving Baghdad heading to Damascus, London, Berlin, Paris and other destinations in Europe. Iraqis and people all over the world used to dream of the chance to take a trip in the famous “Orient Express.”

…

Now the Iraqi Republic Railways company is trying to fix the trains and is working on improving the old Orient Express, hoping the railroads will be modernized and good enough for passengers to use regularly in the near future.

This week our correspondent Nabeel Kamal visited the Iraqi Republic Railways company in Baghdad to see how the progress is going with this old company that is in fact older than Iraq itself.

Source: Alive in Baghdad 24 November 2008

Railway poster

The Orient Express in its many forms didn’t actually go to Baghdad, but only as far east as Istanbul, where passengers had to cross the Bosporus by boat – though a tunnel is now being built.

Sadly the Orient Express is now reduced to running from Strasbourg to Vienna and back; the Man in Seat 61 explains all.

The book The 8:55 to Baghdad by Andrew Eames provides a more recent perspective on the journey from London to Baghdad. Agatha [Christie] used just two trains, the Orient Express and the Taurus Express, and then took what was effectively a taxi across 400 miles of desert from Damascus to Baghdad. Although both the OE and the TE still exist, they are nothing like what they used to be, so I had to string together a total of eight trains to do the same trip. And then join a coach of very unlikely characters to cross the desert into Iraq, in the last months before war broke out.

Baghdad metro plan is revived

Posted on by Andrew Grantham

The Guardian of 18 November 2008 reports the revival of plans to build a metro in Baghdad, with money being set aside for a feasibility study.

Baghdad goes underground with $3bn metro plan

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[On 17 November] the mayor of Baghdad surprised everyone by announcing plans for an underground train network that will literally carve a swathe through the city’s sectarian lines.

If investors sign up, the world’s most violent capital will soon have a $3bn (£2bn) metro. Sabir al-Issawi, Baghdad’s mayor, said money had been set aside in next year’s budget for a feasibility study.

And if that goes ahead, the Iraqi government has earmarked funding that it claims could build most of the two mooted train lines without private help. Even the country’s eternal optimists were last night calling the plan ambitious, but lauding its audacity.

…

One of the new proposed subway lines would run 11 miles from Shia-dominated Sadr City in the east to Adhamiya in north Baghdad. The other would traverse 13 miles and link mixed central Baghdad to the primarily Sunni western suburbs.

Both lines would have 20 stations each

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The project’s engineer Atta Nabil Hussain Auni Atta, of Iraq’s transport ministry, said old 1970s blueprints for the underground line were being redrawn to bring it up to speed with the specifications of modern railways.

Source: Guardian, UK

This map of a proposed two-line metro network was produced in the past

In July 1982 Railway Gazette International reported plans for a metro. Work was to start August 1983, for test running 1986:

Construction phase Line Route Description
Phase 1 Line 1 north to west Thawra (depot)/Sadr City – Aadhamiya 32km 36 stations.
60% bored tunnel, rest cut and cover
Line 2 south to east Mansour (depot) (south) – Masbah (east)
Phase 2   extensions 11 km, 10 stations
Phase 3 Line 3 In north of city  

Another 18 November 2008 report:

Iraq plans Baghdad metro to ease traffic

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One metro line would run 18 kilometres from the far side of the eastern Shiite slum of Sadr City to the centre of the city and then up north to the mostly Sunni Adhamiyah neighbourhood, covering 20 stations.

The second line, extending 21 kilometres, would start in the south and pass through the central commercial district of Karrada before crossing the Tigris river and running out to the mostly Sunni neighbourhoods in west Baghdad.
…
Source: AFP/Yahoo

Baghdad’s commuter train is beautiful but slow

Posted on by Andrew Grantham

All aboard the Baghdad Metro is an article by Tina Susman and Caesar Ahmed on the Los Angeles Times website.

Dated November 18 2008, it describes the recently introduced Iraqi Republic Railways commuter service in Baghdad, with a simple map.

Despite the story’s title, it is about an Iraqi Republic Railways “mainline” rail service, not a “metro” as such. A metro was proposed for Baghdad in the past, but not built.

“If this succeeds, I think they’ll open more lines inside Baghdad,” says Thafir Salim, the engineer [train driver] on the route, which leaves the main station and weaves about 15 miles through west and south Baghdad on just two round-trip journeys a day: one in the morning and one in the afternoon.

There are six photos. Some show a Dalian DEM 2700 mainline locomotive, which seem to appear in most of the photos of IRR which I’ve seen, but some of the LA Times pictures seem to show a Tülomsas Bo-Bo diesel-hydraulic loco.

“It’s beautiful, but it’s slow,” says Mohammed Ali, a Baghdad University student who normally takes the taxi from his Dora home to school. But the first-time rider says he will keep taking it. “I think it’s more secure than the taxis,” he says. “What’s good here is there are no checkpoints, no traffic, no explosions.”

Baghdad commuter service starts up

Posted on by Andrew Grantham

Various news sources report the [re-?]start of commuter rail services in Baghdad at the end of October, which is good news.

AP has some photographs, A train arrives at al-Alawi railway station, central Baghdad, Iraq, on Thursday, Oct. 30, 2008, showing DEM2727.

Baghdad Central station in 2005 (Photo by Mark Hemphill)

Commuter rail trains running in Baghdad to relieve traffic jams

by Fu Yiming, Jamal Hashim

…
The 25-kilomter commuter rail, a section of an old railway which had been damaged by the war and stopped running for years, came into operation just a few days ago.

It shuttles between central Baghdad and the mostly Shiite neighborhood of Kazimiyah north of the capital or the mainly Sunni suburb of Yousifiyah in the south, which makes a handful of stops in both Sunni and Shiite neighborhoods. A ticket costs 1,000 Iraqidinars (equivalent to 80 cents).

“The train is faster than cars, it avoids stopping in traffic jams and dozens of checkpoints that people obliged to pass through,” a Transport Ministry official said on condition of anonymity.

….
At the main station in Allawi area in central Baghdad, metal detectors and body search conducted by male and female security members are set at several checkpoints.

There are also walls that protect the railroad along with security forces protecting main and some stops for the train.

The anonymous Transport Ministry official said that “there are no security problems among those Sunni and Shiite districts, because situation is calm now” and there are also walls that protect the railroad along with security forces protecting main and some stops for the train, “but everybody knows that there is no 100 percent of guarantee for safety, not in every place in the world.”
[more]
Source: Xinhua

The official Iraqi Republic Railways website gives a timetable, but it doesn’t survive a Google translation:

News is very important

The company of the Iraqi Basthat railway line to transport people

As “the 10-27-2008 works on the side of Karkh to train
Services and absorb the momentum off in the Karkh side of the station
Central at 5.35 am, “passing” Mansour station at 5.50
And the field or drums session at 6.12 and the Abu Dshir to station
Yusufiya train at 6.25 am. “And leave the station for Yusufiya”
Baghdad at 6.50 am, “and hit the Abu Dshir 7.07 pm
Morning “and reach the station at 7.10 and 7.25 Mansour up station
Morning, “as up to the train station Kadhimiya at 7.50 am.” And again
Passenger b at 2.45. Aa train station Kadhimiya through “station
Mansour train at 3.09 b. And an AM or drums session at 3.27
B. AA and the Abu Dshir, to close at 3.45 b Yusufiya. Aa.
And re-boarding the train station at 4.00 pm Yusufiya, “passing”
Abu Dshir area in order “to the train station at 4.15 pm”
Access “to the train station at 4.46 pm Mansour” and up to station
Central Baghdad at 4.45 pm. ”

Fare (1000) thousand dinars only
Source: Iraqi Republic Railways.

Maqil light railway pictures

Posted on by Andrew Grantham

Maqil light railway

Rainer Fuchs, who has a comprehensive website on Iraqi railway stamps, has found some wonderful vintage stereoscopic photographs of the Magil – Basra railway and the Magil light railway.

They are labelled with the name of Sunbeam Tours, who appear to have been at 37 Bedford Street, Strand, London WC2.

Maqil/Magil is near Basra, and seems to have a had a complicated mix of 2′, 2’6″ and metre gauge railways from World War I onwards.

Maqil - Basra railway

Maqil - Basra railway

Iraq rail investment plans

Posted on by Andrew Grantham

Iraq Development Program has a report from Noozz dated May 19 about various railway development plans. It is illustrated with a UK Class 323 EMU in Centro colours!

Iraq to invest $6 billion in railways to boost trade and tourism

Iraq will spend over $6 billion over the next few years to develop its railway infrastructure for passenger and freight services, connecting the whole country via a central hub encircling Baghdad according to the general director of the Iraqi Railroads Company.

Alaa ad-Deen Sadiq, the general director of the Iraqi Railroads Company, one of the enterprises of the ministry of transportation, told Al-Bayyina newspaper that the ministry has approved two giant projects for implementation and that a third is currently being discussed.

An unnamed international company has been awarded a design and modernization contract for the $1 billion Baghdad circle line railway. Construction on the project has already begun, and once completed it will encircle Baghdad, creating a 112km hub for all rail traffic moving across the country.

The project also includes the construction of two new passenger stations and a goods yard in south-west Baghdad, and three rail bridges, two across the river Tigris and one across the river Diyala.

Two new railways will be built in the second project linking Baghdad with Iraq’s southern sea ports for travel, tourism or commerce: Baghdad-Kut-Nsiriyya-Basra and Baghdad-Kut-Imara-Basra lines, at an estimated cost of $3 billion.

25 medium to large stations will be built along the lines, in addition to 20 interchange stations connecting to other railways, and a freight goods yard.

No details of completion dates were given in the report.

Sadiq revealed that a $2 billion railway to connect northern Iraq with Iran is in the planning stage, and will connect several major cities in the Iraqi Kurdistan region.

The 430km Baghdad-Kirkuk-Irbil-Mosul railway will serve as the central feeder line between Baghdad and the north, with central stations in Kirkuk and Mosul will feed two lines to Iran: Khanaqin-Munthiriyya-Khisravi-Qsr-Shirin-Kermanshah; and Khanaqin-Munthiriyya-Iran.

He did not give any details of where the line will run in Iran or the names of Iranian partners involved in the project.

Iraqi Railroads Company is undertaking modernization work on Iraq’s dilapidated railway infrastructure, the report said, highlighting efforts to install a fibre optic laser signaling system, signals, and a communications network, as well as announcing plans to integrate Iraq’s railways with neighbouring countries to increase tourism and commercial exchanges.

Dubai conference to include Iraq rail transport

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Information about the Iraq Transportation & Communications Technology Summit to be held in Dubai on 9-10 October 2008.

One key area of precedence is that of the country’s rail networks, with a large number of projects being run through the State Company for Railways, including a new project for connecting Iraq with Iran, the modernisation of the existing networks, developing communications and signalling networks and restoring power supplies to stations across the country. The Ministry is also looking to purchase new rolling stock and other railway-related equipment such as cranes for equipment, freight trucks, emergency services vehicles and replacement train engines.

More.

Saddam’s train in 2004

Posted on by Andrew Grantham

With the personal train of Saddam Hussein back in the news this month, here is an old article about it from the Sunday Times of July 25 2004.

Fat controller Saddam played games with his golden train

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Two German-made engines and nine carriages imported from France were reserved for the use of the dictator. The engines have already been incorporated into the rest of Iraq’s limping railway network, but The Sunday Times was able to view some of Saddam’s former carriages in a siding at the Baghdad station.

There were ordinary sleeper compartments for the guards and a saloon and sleeping compartment for Saddam. It had been stripped bare by looters at the end of the war. “Nothing was left,” said Jabar. “Many fine fixtures were stolen.”

Opinion is divided about how often the famously paranoid Saddam boarded the train. There were suggestions that he used it more to confuse his enemies and would-be assassins than than he did for personal travel.

Video of Saddam’s train

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The BBC has a short video of the inside of Saddam Hussein’s personal train.

The luxury train belonging to former ruler of Iraq, Saddam Hussein is to return to service.

Since the 1970s, the French-built train has been kept in a secret place in Baghdad.

The 23-carriage train will start to shuttle passengers between Baghdad and the southern city of Basra from September.

The “secret place” where the train was kept was Baghdad Central station, according to a report published in The Times on February 9 2008, alongside Platform 8, long since stripped of their gold and silver fittings.