photos
Mobile friendly
I have changed this website’s WordPress theme, so hopefully it should now be more mobile device friendly. Let me know if anything doesn’t work.
Meanwhile, I would recommend following “Historical Railway Images” on Flickr for lots of great photos of railways in the Middle East, such as this view of Krupp 2-8-0 steam locomotive No 1446 in Iraq. Click for more.
8F and O4 in Iraq
Tony’s Middle East Photos: 8F No.1425 and an Iraq O4 No.1403 in Baghdad in November 1966.
Gaziantep to Mosul in 2010
See also the German-language discussions with lots of photos (including blue diesel locos) at Drehscheibe Online.
Baghdad Central station photos
Some photos of Baghdad central station taken by Pecosbif in April 2010. DEM2733 appears to be painted blue with white stripes, unlike most IRR locos which are green with yellow stripes, as seen on DEM2823.
Photos from Baghdad Central station
Иракские железные дороги is a Russian language webpage with some photos of railways in Baghdad, including Chinese and Turkish built diesel locomotives.
Railfanning in Iraq photos on Trainboard
The October 20 2008 thread “Railfanning in Iraq” on Trainboard has some photos taken by ConrailDan in Al Diwaniyah, about sixty miles south of Baghdad
, in 2003.
The photos (you might need to register to see them) include a DES3100 loco. These were built in Czechoslovakia by CKD Praha as a tropicalised variant of their T669.
There are also pictures of yellow machines, and a T-55 tank on a flat wagon.
From what I remember the Iraqis had pretty good track with concrete ties. I even got to see one train travel over the rails. It was one engine and about twenty covered hoppers
Source: Railfanning in Iraq on Trainboard
Maqil light railway pictures
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
Old train at the train yard in Al Qaim
Flickr user “Hired Gun” has some rather artistic photos of rail facilities at Al Qaim in northwest Iraq, near the border with Syria. DEM 4152 (or is it 4153?) is a Francorail loco dating from the early 1980s.
More photos of Iraqi Republic Railways
There are four photos from Iraq on Railpictures.net.
These include two views of Chinese-built DEM2730 near Mosul in August 2006, and two aerial views of a yard in Baghdad taken from a UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter in June 2003.
Thanks to Tim Moriarty