Baghdad light railways

Ridhwānīyeh – Baghdad, Baghdad – Mufraz and Baghdad – Diyala
The Euphrates between Ramadi and Baghdad , 1917
Gauge :	600 mm ( narrow gauge )
Legend Ridhwānīyeh Abu Thubbah Tel Aswad Kharr Baghdad Baghdad Mufraz 0 Baghdad Baquba Abu Jezra - Abu Saida Diala river 105 Table Mountain Chanaqin Iraq-Iran border 210 Quretu

The field railways of Baghdad were field railways operated during the First World War in the Ottoman Empire , which were laid with flying track in what is now Iraq .

Decauville Railway Baghdad – Mufraz

Old and new route of the Decauville Railway Baghdad – Mufraz, March 1917

Decauville Railway southwest of Baghdad

The Decauville -Bahn Baghdad – Mufraz ran from Baghdad in a south-westerly direction to Mufraz . On March 11, 1917, British troops occupied Baghdad. Shortly thereafter, Turkish troops who had fled north destroyed the Sakhlawiya Dam on the Euphrates, flooding an area south of Baghdad through which the first 17.7 kilometers (11 miles) of the light railroad ran. British soldiers then dismantled the flying track from March 30, 1917 to April 13, 1917 and relocated it on a new route by April 25, 1917. The sunlight warmed up the rails so much during the day that the soldiers could only touch them if they protected their hands with empty sandbags. Since no expansion pieces were available, the track warped in some sections of the route due to the great heat and had to be relocated in the second half of April 1917. ^{Pp. 222-223}

Decauville Railway Ridhwānīyeh – Baghdad

The hand-operated light rail line from Ridhwānīyeh to Baghdad with a gauge of 600 mm connected the Euphrates with Baghdad. It ran south of the old caravan route from Aleppo via Fallujah to Baghdad. It began near the mouth of the Ridhwānīyeh Canal and led through Abu Thubbah and Tel Aswad and the Baghdad suburb of Kharr (probably near the Kharr Bridge) to Baghdad. In May 1916, the carts were still being pushed there by hand.

On the night of April 24th to 25th, 1917 a dam broke that had held back the Euphrates floods until then, whereupon the road to Fallujah and the Decauville Railway Ridhwānīyeh – Baghdad were flooded and became impassable. In the area of ​​the dam breach, the flood was 4.50 m deep and flowed through the constriction at high speed, so that the dam could only be repaired with difficulty. In order to bring sandbags to the dam breach, a makeshift route made of Decauville-Jochen and climbing switches was quickly laid there, on which trains with 4, 5 or 6 tipping lorries loaded with sandbags could be pushed by hand. After the work was completed, the flood dropped to 0.6 to 1 meter. ^{P. 564}

Baghdad – Diyala light railway

In May 1917, the construction of a light rail line from Baghdad to the Diyala Front began. Due to the lack of meter gauge material with a gauge of 762 mm, it was built from material that came from the dismantled Sheikh Sa`d - As Sinn line and the abandoned Qurna - ʻAmara line . The line was opened to traffic on July 13, 1917 to Baquba . She later became 105 km from Baghdad, Table Mountain was extended. Between Baquba and Table Mountain there was also a 6.5 opened in 1917 km long branch line connecting Abu Jezra and Abu Saida on the Diala River , one of the main tributaries of the Tigris .

Later, a new meter-gauge line was laid next to the existing narrow-gauge line. The Baghdad – Baquba section was opened in November 1917, the Baquba – Table Mountain section in June 1918. The route was initially led on a wooden bridge at Baquba over the Diala River . At the end of 1918, the pile bridge was replaced by a permanent structure consisting of four spans of 30 each m and two spans of 23 each m insisted on caissons pillars. Towards the end of 1918, an extension of this route to Chanaqin on the Persian border was completed. Later the route was extended to 210 km from Baghdad, the Quretu was extended.

Web links

• Battles of Ramadi in 1917 (English)

Individual evidence

1. ^ ^{A b} Lieutenant-Colonel HF Murland: Baillie-Ki-Paltan: Being a History of the 2nd Battalion, Madras Pioneers 1759-1930. Andrews UK Limited, 2012, pp. 222, 223 and 564.
2. ^ Andrew Martin: The Baghdad Railway Club. Faber & Faber, 2012. p. 92.
3. ↑ ^{a b} Handbook of Mesopotamia. Vol. II. 1917, p. 370.
4. ↑ Handbook of Mesopotamia. Vol. III. 1917, p. 11.
5. ↑ Iraq topographic map TC 103 (C): Ridhwaniyah Post. Compiled by Survey Party MEF
6. ↑ ^{a b c} Military Light Railways. In: Enzyclopedia Britannica.
7. ↑ Handbook of Mesopotamia. Vol. I., November 1918, p. 15.