BOSTAN: Until four decades ago, the Bostan Junction Railway Station was a place of industry and movement: steam whistles echoed in the mountain air, porters loaded freight and children raced along its narrow-gauge tracks.

Located about 30 kilometers north of Quetta in the Takatu mountain range, Bostan once linked Pakistan’s rugged west to a vast colonial network of steel and steam.

Today, the station lies silent. Carriages rust in the sun. Tracks are buried beneath dust and weeds. The station buildings, once bustling with workers and traders, are mostly empty.

Built under British rule, the Bostan-Zhob narrow-gauge line was commissioned in 1919 and, by 1929, stretched 294 kilometers to the border town of Zhob. It wound through ten remote stations, including Kan Mehtarzai, the highest railway station in Pakistan at 2,224 meters above sea level.

While the rest of the subcontinent was dominated by broad-gauge lines, Balochistan’s unforgiving mountainous terrain required something lighter, cheaper and more flexible.

Narrow-gauge rail was the solution — and Bostan became its hub.

“The first 74.7 kilometers were completed in January 1921, connecting Bostan with Hindubagh [now Muslim Bagh],” said Aminullah Khan, the current Station Master at Bostan Junction.

“There used to be large offices here with loading and unloading operations. Nearly 500 to 1,000 railway employees worked here in different departments, but today, only four employees work at this station and the rest of the offices are closed.”

The line carried both freight and passengers. British authorities used it to transport chromite ore from the mines in Hindubagh to Bostan, where it was transferred to broad-gauge trains for shipment to Karachi via Quetta.

The Bostan-Zhob line continued operating well after Pakistan’s independence in 1947 but was eventually shut down in 1985. Pakistan Railways cited mounting financial losses and the difficulty of maintaining the remote infrastructure.

“It was consistently running at a loss,” said Dr. Irfan Ahmed Baig, a Quetta-based academic and author of Half-Century Rail.

“There are even records that for one or two years, not a single ticket was sold. People tore up the tracks and took away everything, which faded the remains of the historical track.”

Divisional Superintendent of Pakistan Railways in Quetta, Imran Hayat, confirmed the line’s decline.

“With the government’s policy of promoting roads more than the Railways, the track slowly deteriorated and was finally closed on May 29, 1985,” he said.

“The population of Balochistan province has always been scant, and it cannot be said with clarity that it was a well-patronized passenger route for Railways.”

He added that some rolling stock was deliberately left behind at Bostan at the community’s request. But over the years, theft and scavenging have stripped away much of what remained.

“The stock has slowly been cannibalized by the locals, and theft of metal is a routine practice,” Hayat said.

“The remaining stock available at Bostan Railway Station is in very bad shape and of no use other than scrap value. The local population has no plan for the restoration of the stock, neither have they ever requested nor shown interest in this regard.”

“DISAPPEAR FROM HISTORY”

Others see it differently.

Kaleemullah Kakar, a 45-year-old tribal elder who led a protest in 2023 against the auction of the remaining railway assets, remembers when the station was a part of everyday life.

“I still remember when our school ended, we spent our childhood right on this platform,” he said. “I remember clearly the coal engines on those tracks, just like I can see you now.”

Kakar said over 100 narrow-gauge coaches and several steam engines were removed from Bostan and relocated to major cities.

“Out of nearly 150 historical bogies, Pakistan Railways sold 100 bogies and eight steam engines were taken away and are now standing outside Lahore, Karachi and Quetta Railway Stations,” he said. “Nothing was left for Bostan.”

Only about one kilometer of track remains today. Six damaged carriages sit in the station yard. The shed that once housed locomotives is now an empty shell.

Still, some believe the railway’s legacy, and what little is left of it, deserves to be preserved.

“We deeply wish for the narrow-gauge service to resume because it gave recognition to this town,” said Muhammad Naseem Khan Nasir, a local politician and tribal elder.

“If these remnants vanish, nothing will be left of Bostan. Even its name will disappear from history.”