Khyber Pass trains

For those who live in Auckland, the Khyber Pass refers to only one thing, but for everyone else it is the pass which separates Pakistan and Afghanistan, at least for road vehicles. However, until the British withdrew from India in 1947 there was no separate Pakistan.

A chronology of the railway:

1857: The Chairman of the Scinde, Punjab and Delhi Railway Company, Mr William Andrew proposes rail routes through the Khyber and Bolan passes.
1878: The second Anglo-Afghan war takes place
1879: Sir Guilford Molesworth, an English Civil Engineer who was consulting for the Indian government considered a survey of a metre gauge railway through the Khyber Pass.
1880: On 27 March a news item appears in the Morning Post newspaper announcing the construction of Khyber Pass railways.
1885: Another survey was conducted by Captain JRL McDonald up to Landi Kotal.
1890: Captain JRL McDonald surveys another route to Khyber Pass following the gorge of River Kabul.
1898: One more survey was conducted to lay railways through the Khyber Pass.
1901: Broad gauge (1676 mm) track is completed from Peshawar to Jamrud.
1905: Work started on laying an alternate metre gauge route following the Kabul River into the Mullagori hills.
1907: 32 km of broad gauge track was completed from Kacha Garhi to west of Jamrud into the Loi Shilman valley.
1907: On 31 August, Britain and Russia reach an accord in St Petersburg. According to this agreement Britain will not annex or occupy Afghanistan and in return Russia will not consider Afghanistan a country of influence.
1909: The Kabul River Railway is abandoned as the threat from Russia is considered very low.
1919: A third Anglo-Afghan war takes place. Colonel Gordon Hearn plans a broad gauge Khyber Pass railway from Jamrud westwards.
1920: Construction of railways restarts west of Jamrud
1925: On 3 November, the Khyber Pass railway is inaugurated up to Landi Kotal. The next day the first train runs on the Khyber Pass railway.
1926: On 23 April the Khyber Pass railway is extended to Landi Khana.
1926: Track was laid from Landi Khana to the border post at Torkham, but a train never travelled over it.
1932: On 15 December the Landi Kotal to Landi Khana section is closed on request from the Afghan government.
1947: On 14 August, Pakistan gets independence. A weekly Sunday service to Landi Kotal continues.
1982: The regular service to Landi Kotal is suspended because of lack of commercial viability.

In the mid-1990s a tourist train called ‘Khyber Steam Safari’ was started by private enterprise in collaboration with Pakistan railways. It runs on designated days a year and can be chartered. It consists of a train pulled by two vintage oil fired steam locomotives from the 1920s that takes passengers through the rugged mountainous terrain, climbing more than 1,200 m (3,900 ft) through 34 tunnels and 92 bridges, and culverts to reach Landi Kotal. The local tribesmen are still allowed a free ride on the train, in line with the agreement reached between them and the British during the colonial era and which is still honoured by the Pakistan government. One of the rare features of this journey is that its path passes through the Peshawar Airport runway– one of only a few airport runways in the world through which a railway line passes (another one is at Gisborne, NZ). The trip covers about 50 km and takes about 5 hours.

The 1920s oil-fired steam engines, which push and pull the carriages from the rear and front, were built by Vulcan Foundry and Kitson & Co. in the UK.