Bolan Pass Railway Construction
Bolan Pass Railway Construction
Orders for a feasibility survey for the Bolan Pass Railway were first issued by the British Government in 1876. Work on the construction of railways through the Pass started in 1880 but was soon stopped after laying of 31km track due to the occurrence of famous Battle of Maiwand in the area. [1]
Work restarted in 1885 by rapidly laying a rail track in the bed of the river Bolan and finally a steam locomotive rolled into Quetta in August of 1886. The 1885 account given in Practical Machinist states ‘This railroad is of the Decauville system, formed in sections of small steel rails, which can be put down or taken up very quickly.... the locomotive made in two parts, the larger of which weighed on 3,978 pounds, the greatest weight that an elephant can carry”[1]. Francis Langford O'Callaghan, posted from the State Railways, was "engineer in chief for a number of demanding railway projects, surveys and constructios on India's north-west frontier ... the Bolan line through the Bolan Pass to Quetta, 1885-86" [2].
In 1889 a torrential flood destroyed the track which was first laid on the Bolan River bed. A new track was laid at a higher altitude but that also got washed away.
In 1890 orders were issued for laying an all season track through the Pass. This new track was inaugurated on April 15, 1897 and named the Mushkaf-Bolan Railway. The railway was incorporated into the North Western Railway(NWR) network.
The present day railway track through the Bolan Pass is the third attempt of laying railways through the pass and is still operational. At some places along the track one can see the abandoned tunnels and the rail bed of two earlier attempts of laying railways here.
External Links
- "Railway line through the Bolan Pass By Owais Mughal" published by 'All Things Pakistan', 23 Aug 2006.
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 "Elephants carrying locomotives through the Bolan Pass" Scientific American, 15 August 1885, quoted at Practical Machinist‘s Antique Machinery and History Forum; Posted 28 March 2010;Retrieved 10 Dec 2015
- ↑ Institution of Civil Engineers "Biographical Dictionary of Civil Engineers in Great Britain and Ireland - O'Callaghan, Francis Langford "; Retrieved on 13 Jul 2016
