THE BAGDAD RAILWAY

Dominion, Volume 19, Issue 45, 17 November 1925, Page 9

THE BAGDAD RAILWAY

OPENING A NEW LINE. An interesting commentary oa tho Atosul question is afforded by the fact that the new railway to Kirkuk was opened for passenger traffic recently, after several delays, states the lamdo.’i correspondent of the “Manchester Guat. dian.” This line offers ihrougn rail communication between Basra, Bagdad, and Kirkuk, and would cut across tho new border of Iraq if the Turkish proposals for the return of the whole vilayet to them was accepted. Work on the extension of the line from Kirkuk to Mosul City was .commenced this year, in order iro find work for the unemployed and starving tribesmen in the area to the south of Mosul, whose crops had been completely ruined tojthe season by the absence of ram and tho prevalence of locusts. When the new lines eventually reaches Mosul, it is proposed to tear un the track of the old German Bagdad railway,” which at present serves Mosul by running up the western bank of ihe Tigris, and turn the new railway into the “Mosul main line.” The reason for this is that the country to the east of the Tigris is a rich agricultural land, whereas that to the west, irrigated in olden times by canals from tlie Eunlirates, is a sparsely-populated desert. The new Kirkuk line is of the metre gauge, in common with most of the lines in Iraq, whereas the old Bagdad railway” is standard (4ft. San.) gauge. The latter had been completed by tho Germans from' Bagdad to Samarra before the war, but was extended by the British to Shergat, the terminus for Alosul City, and the site of the ancient Assyrian capital ot Ashur.