Concluding the series with an attempt to answer the question “Where did the Khyber Railway end?”
Anyone familiar with this line would know that
The line up to Landi Kotal was opened on 3 Nov 1925,
and was extended up to Landi Khana on 3 Apr 1926
and the section from Landi Kotal to Landi Khana was closed on 15 Feb 1932.
There is no mention in the Annual Reports of IR of that period (up to 1931) about any further line being opened beyond Landi Khana
Now see this map (presumably prepared by Bayley and Hearn) which is part of the papers they read at the Institution of Engineers.
Beyond Landi Kotal there is the reversing station of Tora Tigga, and finally the “terminus” at Landi Khana. This too is a reversing station from where a line appears to proceed to a point on the Afghan border.
However, there does not seem to be any explicit mention of the tracks being laid beyond Landi Khana. In their paper it is mentioned that Landi Khana is a reversing station from where there is a short distance to the border.
Richard Wallace, who has studied this line in detail, says that tunnels were built beyond Landi Khana but rails were not laid.
Probably this brief writeup by Andrew Grantham sums it up:
http://www.andrewgrantham.co.uk/afghanistan/railways/khyber-pass-railway/
In particular: “An alignment was cleared for a extension of the line from Landi Khana to the Afghan border post, although it is uncertain whether any tracks were ever laid on this final section of the route.”
One interesting thing I found was in this map which was part of the 1930 NWR timetable:
This shows “Torra Tigga Nala” beyond Landi Khana. Perhaps this is where the tracks were supposed to end. I have not come across this name anywhere else. It may well be an error connected with Tora Tigga, or the place where the rails were expected to end.
This extract from the 1930 NWR timetable shows the trains running to Landi Khana.
It is a little hard to read the footnotes. But they mention that the trains ran 7 days a week (both ways) up to Landi Kotal and continued beyond to Landi Khana on 2 days. In the last days of the Khyber Railway there was one pair of trains a week to Landi Kotal.
Finally-it may not be too difficult to locate the mythical tracks beyond Landi Khana. See this video from 2017 where the visitors walk down to the station from the highway:
Even the water column still works!
Closing with old pictures of the station, which must be from before 1932:
abn397 