Full steam ahead from Peshawar to Landi Kotal

K-P government plans to revive Khyber Safari tourist train, but infrastructure hurdles remain

PESHAWAR:

“It was 1995 when we started our journey”, says Zahoor Durrani, the founder of Khyber Safari. For 13 years, tourists from across the globe travelled through rugged mountains, pulled by a 72-year-old steam engine.

Once, Durrani says, two Australians saw pictures from a Khyber Safari trip and reserved the whole train. Notable passengers included British Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s grandson Spencer Churchill.



The Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) government now has plans to revive Khyber Safari, which Durrani calls a dream come true.

“I gave it the best part of my life and I saw it fading out, but ever since, I dream of the steam clouds,” he says.

The state of the tracks, however, suggests the revival is likely to take time.

As you travel from Peshawar towards Landi Kotal, the track can be seen laid down along the road, but a patch of almost five kilometres is too damaged to be used. It has deteriorated after flooding, buried under new roads, or been encroached upon.

“This is going to take time but I am optimistic. An engine carrying tourists from Peshawar to Landi Kotal amid white smoke indicates the return of normalcy to an area once overrun with militancy,” says Durrani.

After nurturing the Khyber Safari train as if it was his child, he watched it fade out and he says in 2007, “we closed operation with heavy hearts”.

During a trip to England in the 1990s, Durrani saw people enjoying steam safaris and celebrating wedding anniversaries onboard. It gave him the idea to run a safari between Peshawar and the mountainous Khyber region. He contacted Pakistan railways to use the existing track and lease his agency the rail engines. In 1995 steam safari began running between Peshawar and Landi Kotal.



According to him, the track was laid down in 1880 for the purpose of supplying arms, ammunition and troops to overcome the rising resistance against the British in the region. The tracks pass through the lands of the Shinwari, Mulagori and Afridi tribes. The track between Peshawar’s Cantt station and Landi Khana Station (the last station) in Tehsil Landi Kotal area along the Pak-Afghan border started in 1920 and was completed in five years.

The train would travel East towards Kolkata and Mumbai and celebrities including Dilip Kumar, Raj Kapoor, ancestors of Shahrukh Khan used the same train from Peshawar. However after 1950, it was renamed the North West Railway and in 1955, the track between Peshawar and Landi Kotal was used for commercial transportation.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 30^th, 2019.