Белостан жолы: Пакистанның тау өткелі

Mountain pass in Balochistan, Pakistan

Bolan Pass is a valley and a natural gateway It connects Quetta with Sibi by road and railway. Being strategically located, it has also been used by traders, invaders, and nomadic tribes as a gateway to and from South Asia. The Bolān Pass is an important pass on the Baluch frontier, connecting Jacobabad and Jhang with Multan, which has always occupied an important place in the history of British campaigns in Afghanistan. The local population south of the pass predominantly consists of Brahvi tribes, who extend from Bolan Pass to Cape Monze on the Arabian Sea. The ethnic group north of the pass consists of mainly Pashtuns, while to west, Balochis.

The Bolan Pass is in the Toba Kakar range which lies south of the Hindu Kush mountain ranges. Bolan Pass is described as a pass over a lofty range that is full of ravines and gorges. The mountain ranges of the Bolan pass are the southern geographic border between the Indian plate and the Iranian plateau. The southern point of the pass, near Dhadar, is the western bound of the Indus Valley and is seen as a great strategic point between Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran and the Arabian Sea.

From Sibi, the line runs south west, skirting the hills to Rindli and originally followed the course of the Bolan stream to its head on the plateau. The destructive action of floods, however, led to the abandonment of this alignment, and the railway now follows the Mashkaf valley (which debouches into the plains close to Sibi), and is carried from near the head of the Mashkaf to a junction with the Bolan at Machh. An alternative route from Sibi to Quetta was found in the Harnai valley to the N. E. of Sibi, the line starting in exactly the opposite direction to that of the Bolān and entering the hills at Nari. Originally the Harnai route, although longer, was the one adopted for ordinary traffic, the Bolan loop being reserved for emergencies. However, the route suffered regularly from floods and land slips. Hence the Bolan route was upgraded in 1895 to handle all traffic with the Harnai route kept for local traffic. In 1942 floods destroyed a large part of the line and all through running ceased. By 1943 all bridges and track between Khost and Boston had been recovered. At this time (2024) the line from Sibi to Khost still exists but is Out of Service. At the Khundilani gorge of the Bolan route conglomerate cliffs which rise to a height of 800 ft., enclose the valley. At Siri Bolan the passage between the limestone rocks hardly admits of three persons riding abreast. The temperature of the pass in summer is extremely high. In winter, it is the extremely cold, and the ice cold wind rushing down the narrow outlet becomes destructive to life. Since 1877, when the Quetta agency was founded, the pass was secured by the British Indian Army from militias of Baloch tribesmen (chiefly Marris).