Damascus Hijaz railway station in 2007 [photo credit: Paul Cochrane]
In 2011, following the start of the war, the northern section of the
Hijaz railway connecting Amman to the Syrian border at Daraa ceased
operations. Syria’s Hijaz Railway Organisation (HRO), which controls 346
kilometres of track in the country, limped on during the civil war,
with passenger traffic dropping from a height of 19,000 a year in 2009,
to zero between 2012 and 2014, to then take a few thousand passengers a
year, before operations stopped again in 2024. Passenger numbers on SRO
trains meanwhile dropped from 3.65 million passengers in 2019, to
100,000 last year, according to Syria Report figures.
The civil war took a heavy toll on Syria’s railway infrastructure,
with 60% of track offline – just 1,052 kilometres currently active, 76
out of 105 stations non-operational, and 262 out of 607 bridges out of
action, according to the Syria Report, citing Ministry of Transport
figures. The average speed of trains, supposed to be 120 km/hr, has
fallen to 40km/hr.
Jordan’s railways have also been neglected, with a few heritage
trains running, while the Aqaba Railway, which transported phosphate
from mines near Ma’an to the port city using part of the old Hijaz
Railway alignment, ceased operations in 2018.
Turkiye’s railways, particularly in Eastern Anatolia, were also
neglected, but since 2023, Ankara has committed to expand the network to
17,500 km, and aims to reach 28,500 km as it inks deals for high-speed
train routes, and secured a US$600 million loan from the World Bank last year to expand its electric rail transport.
The long neglect of the region’s railways is not unique to the
Levant. Other regions that once had flourishing railways let them slide
in importance as vehicles and motorways became the focus as people and
cargo movers. As Benedikt Weibel, the former head of Swiss railways quipped
a few years ago, “When I started [40 years ago], railways were the
past, now it is the future”. The emergence of China and South Korea’s
bullet trains, following Japan’s lead, has shown many developing
countries the possibility of turbo charging train transportation from
slow, antiquated lines into a high-speed future.
High-speed trains are not on the cards for the Hijaz railway, which
would arguably be a foolhardy move given the investment required and the
ongoing geopolitical instability in the region, from Syria’s precarious
new government to Israel occupying parts of southern Syria. Indeed,
stability is key to reviving the region’s railways and developing new
lines. After all, it was the Arab Revolt of 1916 against the Ottomans
which de-railed, quite literally at times, the Hijaz railway, with the
1,300 km Damascus to Medina route having been completed just several
years earlier, in 1909.
The plan this time is to build a dedicated line from Istanbul that
connects to multiple inter-rail networks, including to Europe, the
Caucuses, and China’s Belt and Road Initiative, to Damascus. The railway
would then need to be repaired and to lay 30 km of track that is
currently missing between Damascus and the Jordanian border, with
upgrades then required for the route through Jordan and on to Medina.
The networks would connect to land and sea transport hubs, easing
exports and imports.
The plan is a positive one, and should be given international support
as Syria rebuilds, but with Syria already facing huge shortfalls in
reconstruction funding, and Jordan and Turkiye struggling economically
at the macro level, reviving the Hijaz railway may go the way of
previous plans, such as in 2006, which failed to materialise.
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