Project Prospects With Iraqi Railways: The Baghdad To Basra Railway Revisited?

The potential for railways in the Middle East is Victorian in scale. This includes Iraq as it rebuilds using its oil revenues after decades of war and sanctions.Clyde and Co's projects and construction group covers such infrastructure projects with particular railway expertise resting with partner David Moore. Fellow group member and group associate Henry Clarke surveys the current state of Iraqi railways.

The Iraqi railway network in 2008 covered 2,272 kilometres. In the CIA Factbook this was the 66th largest national network. The network length of other national railway networks listed indicate the expansion potential of Iraqi railways: Bolivia has 3,652 kilometres (46th); Egypt has 5,083 kilometres (34th) and Cuba has 8,598 kilometres (24th). There is clearly the potential for vast expansion of the railway network in Iraq to serve its reconstruction and economic advancement.

The potential of railways in Iraq has long been noted. Wilhelmine Germany and the Ottoman Empire commenced construction of a Berlin to Baghdad Railway in 1903, although it was only completed in 1940 under very different global circumstances. The southern section of the national network dates from the British military expedition in World War One; the British laid a narrow gauge line to carry its logistical requirements.

By the 1930s the railways became state owned in the newly independent Kingdom of Iraq. The 1940s and 1950s saw modest expansion of the railways based on oil wealth and the requirements of the Iraq Petroleum Company. With Soviet assistance in the 1970s the southern narrow gauge was converted to standard gauge.

Arguably the late 1970s were the heyday of Iraqi railways to date. A number of long distance, international trains departed from Baghdad. Some Iraqis at the time saw no reason why the Orient Express should not extend its service to Baghdad. Even Saddam Hussein had a presidential train, which apparently he used only once to visit Basra. It now forms part of the passenger rolling stock of Iraqi railways, although presumably without the chandeliers and other luxurious fittings. By the 1980s the railway network could carry a million passengers and 3 million tones of freight annually. It included over thirty bridges over the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Ambitious plans to triple this capacity by 2000 failed to materials due to conflict and sanctions that battered the railway industry.

A mere hulk of a railway system was inherited by the new Iraqi...