The railway from Beirut to Damascus opened in 1895 was the first in the Ottoman
area of Arabia. In ascending the Lebanon range out of Beirut it faced a more severe
challenge than the Central of Peru in reaching a 5000ft summit in 25 miles as opposed
to nearly 16000ft in 100 miles. So rather than the adhesion only worked standard gauge
line of the latter, the line from Beirut was built as 1050mm gauge and utilising Abt
rack sections for some two thirds of the distance between there and Rayak in the
Bekaa valley. The initial climb out of Beirut also included a couple of reversals on
the section up to Aley. East from Rayak this line is then adhesion only but has to climb
some 1500ft to the summit of the Anti-Lebanon range during the 50 mile journey on to
Damascus. Although the Lebanese section closed in 1975 due to the civtl war, that from
Damascus to Serghaya continued into the new millenium at least until is was probably
overtaken by another civil war.
The standard gauge main line of the Damas, Hama et prolongement extended from a
connection with the Baghdad Railway in southern Turkey to Rayak where it connected with
the 1050mm gauge line from Beirut to Damascus. This was opened along with a branch
from Homs to Tripoli in the decade prior to WW1, whilst the Baghdad Railway was far
from completion. During WW2 the British Military constructed a new standard gauge line
along the Mediterranian coast between Haifa and Tripoli to provide a through standard
gauge route from Palestine to Syria, Turkey & Iraq, that was little used south of
Beirut after the war. More information can be found in the following interesting
article
that includes photographs of the line in operation in the 1960s.
As there is only limited material available the images below cover both railways &
the Beirut tram system. This was built by a Belgian company to a gauge of 1050mm and
opened in 1908 but was closed in September 1965 to give way to more motor traffic.
To view any full size image and caption details please click the maroon button below each thumbnail
