Iraq railroads

[Anonymous]

All I know about Iraq, is that it is a desert with lots of oil, and we are at war with their dictator. I'm curious as to what kind of rail system they have over there. Certainly there must be some kind of railroad there. I wonder about any reference sources on this subject.
Todd C.

[Anonymous]

I hope this helps. A lot is out of date. New data are hard to come by, as you might guess.

At "independence," Iraq possessed two separate railroads, one standard gauge and one meter gauge. The standard gauge line ran north from Baghdad through Mosul to the Syrian border and to an eventual connection with the Turkish railroad system, and the meter gauge line ran south from Baghdad to Basra.

Because the two systems were incompatible, until the 1960s cargo had to be transloaded at Baghdad to be transported between the two halves of the country. The Soviet Union helped extend the standard gauge system to Basra, and by 1977 fully 1,129 kilometers of Iraq's 1,589 kilometers of railroad were standard gauge.

By 1985 the total length of railroad lines had been extended to 2,029 kilometers, of which 1,496 kilometers were standard gauge. In 1985 the railroads were being traveled by 440 standard-gauge locomotives that moved 1.25 billion tons of freight per kilometer.

A 252-kilometer line linking Kirkuk and Al Hadithah was completed by contractors from the Republic of Korea (South Korea) in 1987 after five years of work. Built at a cost of US$855 million, the line was designed to carry more than 1 million passengers and more than 3 million tons of freight annually.

The system included maintenance and control centers and more than thirty bridges crossing the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. By the end of the 20th Century, Iraq planned to triple the line's passenger capacity and to double its freight capacity.

A 550-kilometer line, built by a Brazilian company and extending from Baghdad to Qusaybah on the Syrian border, was also opened in the same year.

In 1987 Indian contractors were finishing work on a line between Al Musayyib and Samarra. Iraqi plans also called for replacing the entire stretch of railroad between Mosul and Basra with modern, high-speed track, feeding all lines entering Baghdad into a 112-kilometer loop around the city, and improving bridges, freight terminals, and passenger stations.

In addition, Iraq has conducted intermittent negotiations over the years with Turkey, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia concerning the establishment of rail links to complete a continuous Europe-Persian Gulf railroad route.
passenger train service was advertised on these lines...

Lines include
Baghdad to Al Basrah (southern route)
Baghdad to Abu Kamal (western line)
Baghdad to Al Mawsil (northern line)—this continued into Turkey possibly via Qamishii and Karkamis
There’s a branch from Ba Iji to Kirkuk eastward, too.
Run by (IRR) Iraqi Republic Railways Company, all on standard gauge lines

[Anonymous]

Damm!! All this time I thought they used camels or their women to pull carts over rails.

[Jackflash]

I thought the same thing, except, I didnt think
they had rails

[mudchicken]

Might also add that many of our early Alco RS-1's and RSD-1's went there in WW II to haul freight over the British built railroad due to the Murmansk difficulties. Units came back to the US and wound up in multiple places and at the DOT test center in Pueblo (One survives at Perris, CA OERM) and many ended their careers as "Cra***est Dummies"....Trains had an article on it somewhere 15-20 years ago.

[Anonymous]

Should've left the RS1's there and maybe sent a few C425's. Then Saddam Hussein would have something to complain about.

[RudyRockvilleMD]

I recall reading on the Trains News Wire on March 17 that some Kurdish Inurgents had blown up a section of the line north from Baghdad to Mosul near Mosul.

[corwinda]

I saw an old industrial switcher type diesel locomotive in one of the news shots. One of those showing Sir Galahad (a British ship carrying humanitarian supplies) docking at Al Qasr.

[corwinda]

Oops; that's Um Qasr. Pardon my confusion.

[Anonymous]

WOW!, lots of input on this topic. Thanks fellas. Now, how do we go about doing to Iraqs railroads what the U.S. government is so paranoid that we railfans will do to OUR railroads? For crying out loud, the pentagon should enlist that poster that had so many detailed routes, etc., and use that info. to further cripple Saddam. But, NO. we are still considered "suspect" for watching trains.
By the way, I read an interesting letter today in the local paper. It went like this:
What missiles? Saddam Hussein can't be firing missiles at our troops, or into Kuwait. After all, he said that he either didn't have them to start with, or the ones he "used to have" were destroyed. Well, then where are these missiles coming from?
I don't know. He claimed to have no missiles, but now he is firing them. He claims to have no chemical weapons, they are probably next up. But, my god, I hope that he wasn't lying about not having nuclear weapons........
If he has them, then we better strike first. Who knows what this @*%hole has been up to for the past decade. Espescially with the fall of the Soviet Union, and the possibility of Soviet defense weapons falling into the wrong hands.
Trying times indeed.....
Todd C.

[jsanchez]

I know the US and British are planning on using the Iraq railroads a lot when things settle down, railroads are still the best way to ship supplies , vehicles and ammunition. Especially when you need troops on the front lines and not tied up driving trucks, trains are about 7 times more fuel efficient which is huge advantage right now. A lot of railroads in this country were busy hauling equipment and supplies for the military. The army rail corp has a pretty good website on what they do and equipment used. If I can find the link I'll post it.

[Anonymous]

Oh boy, you dredged up some memories with that reply. I was stationed at Ft. Eustis Va. in the early 1980's. By the time I got there, the Army's railway operating unit was downgraded to "civilian" status. The trackage was still in place though. While my "MOS" kept me at the harbor most of the time, I was lucky enough to get a few cab rides in the old Baldwins once in a while. One situation stands out in memory, our fuel barge had developed an under the waterline leak, and diesel fuel was leaking out into the James river. We had to transfer about 750,000 gallons of DF-2 into rail tank cars in order to send the barge to dry-dock for repairs. At that time, I rode the old baldwins from 3rd. port across base to the yards by the commisary. Funny thing was, after dry-dock inspection, they found no leak. We later surmised that it must have been a faulty oil/water seperator on the barge. Sure made for some fun railfanning though.
Todd C.

[jsanchez]

Here ia link to the army's 1205 rail units old website that still works, the newer site seems to be off limits for now

http://www.angelfire.com/ct/1205thtrob/

[GerFust]

General information on any country's rail system is available at http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/index.html. For Irag in specific, go to http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/iz.html#Trans

For specific information, ask Hank, the guy who answered above. I wonder where he got that stuff.

Jer

[Anonymous]

GOOGLE search, of course.
GOOGLE can find anything--if it's there!!
www.google.com
Hank