Rail transport in Lebanon
Encyclopedia
The Ottoman Empire
The first railway in Lebanon was built while Lebanon was part of the Ottoman Empire, with the French-established Société des Chemins de fer Ottomans économiques de Beyrouth-Damas-Hauran being granted a concession in 1891. This railway was intended to link BeirutBeirut
Beirut is the capital and largest city of Lebanon, with a population ranging from 1 million to more than 2 million . Located on a peninsula at the midpoint of Lebanon's Mediterranean coastline, it serves as the country's largest and main seaport, and also forms the Beirut Metropolitan...
(now the capital of independent Lebanon) and Damascus
Damascus
Damascus , commonly known in Syria as Al Sham , and as the City of Jasmine , is the capital and the second largest city of Syria after Aleppo, both are part of the country's 14 governorates. In addition to being one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, Damascus is a major...
(now the capital of neighbouring Syria
Syria
Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....
), providing Damascus with port access. A contemporary British plan to link Damascus with Jaffa
Jaffa
Jaffa is an ancient port city believed to be one of the oldest in the world. Jaffa was incorporated with Tel Aviv creating the city of Tel Aviv-Yafo, Israel. Jaffa is famous for its association with the biblical story of the prophet Jonah.-Etymology:...
was seen as a threat to Beirut's status as the primary port of the northern Levant
Levant
The Levant or ) is the geographic region and culture zone of the "eastern Mediterranean littoral between Anatolia and Egypt" . The Levant includes most of modern Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Israel, the Palestinian territories, and sometimes parts of Turkey and Iraq, and corresponds roughly to the...
, and the French project was largely in response to this.
Track gauge
The Beirut-Damascus line was built to a gaugeRail gauge
Track gauge or rail gauge is the distance between the inner sides of the heads of the two load bearing rails that make up a single railway line. Sixty percent of the world's railways use a standard gauge of . Wider gauges are called broad gauge; smaller gauges, narrow gauge. Break-of-gauge refers...
, across mountainous terrain, and opened in 1895. At around the same time, a line from Riyaq
Rayak (Riyaq)
Riyaq , also Rayak, is a Lebanese town in the Beqaa Mohafazat , near the city of Zahlé. It has one military airport, an old train station on the former line from Beirut to Damascus, and a hospital....
to Aleppo
Aleppo
Aleppo is the largest city in Syria and the capital of Aleppo Governorate, the most populous Syrian governorate. With an official population of 2,301,570 , expanding to over 2.5 million in the metropolitan area, it is also one of the largest cities in the Levant...
via eastern Lebanon's Beqaa Valley
Beqaa Valley
The Beqaa Valley is a fertile valley in east Lebanon. For the Romans, the Beqaa Valley was a major agricultural source, and today it remains Lebanon’s most important farming region...
was approved. Although it was intended to provide service between Damascus and Aleppo, it was built to standard gauge
Standard gauge
The standard gauge is a widely-used track gauge . Approximately 60% of the world's existing railway lines are built to this gauge...
, and as a result, traffic between those two cities needed to change trains at Riyaq. In the north, the city of Tripoli was also connected to Homs
Homs
Homs , previously known as Emesa , is a city in western Syria and the capital of the Homs Governorate. It is above sea level and is located north of Damascus...
(now in Syria).
World War II
These lines continued to operate after the French replaced the Ottomans as the ruling power, and in World War IIWorld War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, the railways saw significant military use. Under British direction, the coastal line was linked to Haifa
Haifa
Haifa is the largest city in northern Israel, and the third-largest city in the country, with a population of over 268,000. Another 300,000 people live in towns directly adjacent to the city including the cities of the Krayot, as well as, Tirat Carmel, Daliyat al-Karmel and Nesher...
(in today's Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
, see Coastal railway line
Coastal railway line, Israel
The Coastal railway line is a mainline railway in Israel, which begins just south of the Lebanon-Israel border on the Mediterranean coast, near the town of Nahariya in Northern Israel and currently ends in Tel Aviv; by 2013 it will be linked to the existing Ashdod Railway Station south of Tel Aviv,...
) and extended to Tripoli
Tripoli, Lebanon
Tripoli is the largest city in northern Lebanon and the second-largest city in Lebanon. Situated 85 km north of the capital Beirut, Tripoli is the capital of the North Governorate and the Tripoli District. Geographically located on the east of the Mediterranean, the city's history dates back...
, all in standard gauge — this meant that it was now theoretically possible to travel from Europe to Africa without changing trains.
Lebanese independence
When Lebanon obtained its independence, the parts of this rail system which were within its territory came into state control, eventually being organised as Chemin de Fer de l'Etat Libanais (CEL). The Lebanese Civil WarLebanese Civil War
The Lebanese Civil War was a multifaceted civil war in Lebanon. The war lasted from 1975 to 1990 and resulted in an estimated 150,000 to 230,000 civilian fatalities. Another one million people were wounded, and today approximately 350,000 people remain displaced. There was also a mass exodus of...
caused considerable damage to the rail network, however, and services gradually ceased. The last regular rail operations in Lebanon were trains carrying cement from Chekka
Chekka
Chekka is coastal town located in the South of North Lebanon. It is located north of Râs ach-Chaq’a’ and Herri beaches, or Theoprosopon of classical times and south of the ancient Phoenician port of Enfeh and the city of Tripoli. The origin of the word is believed to be Canaanite from the word...
to Beirut in 1997.