Place · mountain railway · Pakistan
The Khyber Pass Railway
Forty-two kilometres from Jamrud to Landi Kotal, built between 1920 and 1925 to put artillery at the head of the Khyber, and one of the most heavily engineered stretches of railway anywhere: thirty-four tunnels, ninety-odd bridges and culverts, a climb of six hundred metres, and a pair of reversing zig-zags at Changai where the gradient defeated a curve. Victor Bayley ran the work. It was never extended into Afghanistan, and regular traffic has long stopped.
- Function
- Travel & migration
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
- Location
- 34.100, 71.150 (approximate)
Worth knowing
At Changai the train cannot turn, so it runs into a dead-end spur, reverses up the next incline and repeats — a staircase for locomotives, built because the pass would not accommodate a bend.
Connections (2)
- In the same set asKhojak Pass & the Chaman line
Two tunnels bored toward Afghanistan and neither reaching it. The Khojak, finished in 1891, runs nearly four kilometres under the pass above Chaman so that troops could be moved quickly toward Kandahar; the Khyber Pass Railway, built 1920–25, climbs from Jamrud to Landi Kotal through thirty-four tunnels and two reversing zig-zags to put guns at the head of that pass. Both lines stop at the frontier by design. They are the most expensive things the Raj built in the north-west, and they were built to be ready rather than to be used.
- In the same set asKalka–Shimla Railway
Two of the most heavily engineered railways the Raj built in mountains, for opposite purposes. The Kalka–Shimla line of 1903 carried a government up to a hill station for the summer: a hundred and three tunnels, eight hundred bridges, and a two-foot-six gauge climbing to the viceregal capital. The Khyber Pass Railway of 1920–25 carried artillery to a frontier: thirty-four tunnels, two reversing zig-zags and a six-hundred-metre climb to Landi Kotal. One line was built so that an empire could be comfortable, the other so that it could be ready.
On these journeys
Sources
Wikipedia, “Khyber Pass Railway”. North Western Railway engineering reports; Victor Bayley, Permanent Way through the Khyber (1934).
Open The Khyber Pass Railway in the repository →