Origin Constructing a railway line from Baghdad to Kirkuk was discussed in the latter half of the 19th century. However, the project was delayed due to the disruptions caused by World War I.
Light railway Baghdad-Diyala In May 1917, construction began on a light railway line from Baghdad to the Diyala Front. Due to a lack of
metre-gauge material, it was built with a track width of 762 mm from material from the dismantled Sheikh Saad-Sinn line and the abandoned Qurna-Amara line. The route was opened to traffic on July 13, 1917 to Baquba. It was later extended to
Table Mountain, from Baghdad. Between Baquba and Table Mountain, a 6.5 km long branch line opened in 1917, connecting
Abu Jezra and
Abu Saida on the
Diyala River, one of the main tributaries of the Tigris.
Metre-gauge railway Baghdad-Quretu Later, a new meter gauge line was laid alongside the existing narrow-gauge line. The Baghdad–Baquba section was opened in November 1917, and the Baquba–Table Mountain section in June 1918. The line initially ran on a wooden bridge over the Diyala River at Baquba. At the end of 1918, the
pile bridge was replaced by a permanent structure consisting of four 30 m spans and two 23 m spans on
caisson piers. Towards the end of 1918, an extension of this line to
Khanaqin on the Persian border was completed. After the British received the
Mandate for Mesopotamia in 1918, the
Baghdad-Quraitu Railway commenced construction to
Quretu in modern day
Iran, 210 km (130 mi) from Baghdad. Still, the
Mesopotamian Railways continued constructing the railway line towards Kirkuk, from Quraitu onwards. In 1947, a 12 km connection to the
Baba Gurgur oil refinery was built from Kirkuk. In 1949, the railway was extended by 105 kilometers to
Erbil, with a new railway bridge crossing the
Great Zab River near
Al-Tun. By 1950, the first train arrived in Erbil. In 1963, a plan to extend the railway further to Sulaymaniyah was proposed by
Major General Saleh Zaki Tawfiq, the Iraqi director of railways. However, this plan was abandoned after the regime change in 1968. The new railway made the old connection economically obsolete, thus forcing it to close. Other, political reasons were to make
Arabisation easier, by not only connecting Kirkuk better to other Sunni Arab areas in the west of Iraq but also cutting off railway access to Kurdish areas following the autonomy of
Iraqi Kurdistan in 1970. Erbil and the rest of the
Kurdistan Region slowly lost their rail service starting in 1984 by order of the
Office of the Presidency of the Iraqi Republic and finishing on May 15, 1988. As a result, many landmarks along the old line, such as the Erbil Railway Terminal, the Baba Kiwan Junction, multiple bridges, and various facilities such as hotels and hospitals, were demolished. == References ==