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Article: Reviving the legend: rebuilding the Hijaz pilgrim railway is central to Jordan's plans for a modern national rail network.(The Hijaz Railway)
- Article from:
- MEED Middle East Economic Digest
- Article date:
- March 25, 2005
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2005 MEED Middle East Economic Digest. All Rights Reserved. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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The Hijaz railway has seen better days. Sitting in the sidings at Amman station are coaches recognisable from the silent movie era. Elsewhere, abandoned steam locomotives sit in the open, their wheels rusted solid to the narrow-gauge track and weeds growing in their boilers. The few remaining trains that make the journey north to Damascus use a mixture of old Soviet rolling stock and antique wooden carriages. In the passenger cars, many of the outer doors are missing.
In its heyday; just after it was built in 1908, the Hijaz railway was transporting as many as 300,000 pilgrims south each year for the annual Hajj. Today; the remaining Amman-Damascus service carries ...