THE KHYBER RAILWAY

Of all the historic passes in the north-west of Pakistan, the Khyber Pass is the best known. It lies on the most direct trade route between Pakistan and Central Asia via Kabul, capital of Afghanistan. Yet the Khyber Pass was the last to be traversed by a railway. Two roads and an aerial ropeway preceded the inflexible iron road, and in the light of subsequent events, it is surprising that a railway ever was constructed through the Khyber.

Completed in 1926, the single broad-gauge track with its reversing stations was twice as costly to build as the magnificent railway construction of 1895 through the Bolan Pass, much of which is double line. The Khyber railway cost Rs708,000 a mile to build and the density of the train service has never exceeded two trains a week.

Before the stoppage of train operation in early 1980s, 31 Up from Peshawar to Landikotal and 32 Down, which is the same PR train in the reverse direction, runs on Sundays only and it carries second-inter-third class passengers only. The Khyber was built as a strategic railway. It came too late and if its former owners gained prestige from the enterprise, there is very little chance of the line ever becoming of any commercial importance. It may be an excursion train.

The first reference to a proposal to build a railway link with Afghanistan appears in the history of the Second Afghan War when Sir Guilford Moleswoth examined the possibility of running a metre-guage line through the Khyber, but at that time the Indus had not been bridged at Attock.

In 1890, the subject was reopened seven years after railhead had reached Peshawar Cantonment and Captain afterwards Major General Sir J R L MacDonald made a survey following the gorge of the Kabul River. Eight years later, another survey, this time in the Khyber Pass itself, was made for a railway, either metre gauge or narrow as far as Landikotal, the summit of the pass.

In 1901, the northwestern railway was extended as far as Jamrud, entrance to the Khyber Pass, and nine miles from Peshawar Cantonment. And in 1905, a start was made with the construction of a railway running part-way up the Kabul River gorge and then turning west up the Loi Shilman Valley. But changes in the international scenario and an alliance with Russia slowed down the work and in 1909 the whole scheme was abandoned.

In 1919, the Third Afghan War brought matter to a head once again, and Colonel (later Sir Gordon) UR Hearn was deputed to examine and report on the best route by which rail communication could be made to the Frontier. In one brief season, he destroyed the myth of impossibility and demonstrated through a masterly survey that broad-gauge line could be laid up and over and down the other side of the Khyber Pass.

Construction of the line began in 1920 and the section from Jamrud to Landikotal was opened on 3 November, 1925, and on down to Landi Khan, just two miles short of the actual Frontier post, on 3 April, 1926.

The alignment selected by Colonel Hearn is regarded as a classic example of brilliant surveying, and at the formal opening of the Khyber railway (just another part of the North Western Railway), Sir Clement Hindley, Chief Commissioner of Railways, Government of India (later, in 1939, president of the institution of civil engineers), said that from the engineering point of view the work had no superior in the world. The opening ceremony was performed by Sir Charles Innes, acting on behalf of the Viceroy.

Built through tribal territory, the Khyber Agency, under the care of the political agent of the Khyber, where there was in those days no law but tribal custom and where human life and property were lightly esteemed, the Khyber railway has a ruling gradient of 3 per cent between Jamrud and Landikotal (3,494 feet above sea level). There is a rise of nearly 2,000 feet in 21 miles and a drop 8,72 feet in the 4.5 miles down to Landi Khana where the gradient stiffens to 1 in 25.

There are four reversing stations, which are also crossing stations, and six ordinary crossing stations, 34 tunnels with an aggregate length of three miles, 92 bridges and culverts, none with a span longer than 80 feet, and four locomotive watering stations. And during the construction, three million cubic yards of material, mainly rock, was moved in the cuttings and embankments.

Essentially a strategic railway, the Khyber was designed for the movement of troops and supplies in time of emergencies. For that reason, it was laid out for operation with the normal 2-8-0 HG/S tender engines, which reigned supreme in the Bolan and were the usual goods engines on the plains. This avoided tying up capital for elaborate motive power on a line which had little prospect of ever becoming a commercial link between India and Afghanistan.

The splendid motor road was there already and although Colonel Hearn maintained that the reversing stations on the Khyber Railway could be eliminated, the cost would have been very great. In point of fact, the line between Landikotal and Landi Khana has been closed since 15 December, 1932.

The Khyber Railway was the last of great railway constructions undertaken in the Frontier during the British Raj. Whether the enormous cost was justified, nobody can ever tell, but it brought wealth to the tribesmen who helped build it and proved that a railway could be constructed through the most impossible country.

As was said during ad discussion following the preservation of two papers about the Khyber Railway at the institution of civil engineers in 1925, the line was blessed at the outset with four particular assets of permanent value. The five feet and six inches guage meant there was no transhipment bogey, the curvature (818 feet radius is the sharpest) suits the eight coupled standard locomotives, and the generous clearances, horizontal and vertical, will suit any steam engine ever likely to be run on the future railways of India.

NOTE: I wanted to add an article on Khyber Railway and write it myself, but I came across this excellent article by Qazi Bahader Ali. It was so good that I was compelled to add the same article to this book, with the courtesy of monthly The BusyWorid International, Peshawar, Deccember 1994-January 1995. I can only add that those who died during the construction of Shilman Railway are buried in the British cemetery of Peshawar Cantt.