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A trip back in time on Lebanon’s disappearing railway

Lebanon’s 408km of railway once connected the country to its neighbours, but today the train stations stand abandoned.

A Voyage Along Lebanon’s Nonexistent Railways/ Please Do Not Use
In 2014, Beirut's Mar Mikhael station, located in a hip neighbourhood of the capital, was turned into a bar. [Changiz M Varzi/Al Jazeera]
By Changiz M Varzi
Published On 1 May 2016

In August 1895, the first steam train departed from Beirut and passed across the Bekaa Valley towards Rayak station, near the border with modern-day Syria. It was the golden age of rail transport in Lebanon.

Lebanon’s 408km of railway once connected Beirut to Damascus, Syria, and Haifa, a coastal city in present-day Israel. Today, there is nothing left but dilapidated station buildings and rusted locomotives. The Lebanese civil war, which ran from 1975 to 1990, effectively put an end to rail transport in the country.

Some train stations were demolished by warring factions during the civil war; others were later bulldozed for highway projects; still others have simply been left abandoned. Historic locomotives rust at Rayak and Tripoli stations, while in Europe, the same engines are preserved in museums.

A Voyage Along Lebanon’s Nonexistent Railways/ Please Do Not Use
The last remnants of these railway tracks are located in the middle of an Armenian neighbourhood in Beirut. [Changiz M Varzi/Al Jazeera]
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A Voyage Along Lebanon’s Nonexistent Railways/ Please Do Not Use
Occasionally, film directors make use of the abandoned Araya station as a filming location for low-budget productions. [Changiz M Varzi/Al Jazeera]
A Voyage Along Lebanon’s Nonexistent Railways/ Please Do Not Use
Bhamdoun station is in ruins, with a new highway passing through it. [Changiz M Varzi/Al Jazeera]
A Voyage Along Lebanon’s Nonexistent Railways/ Please Do Not Use
Sofar, once a summer destination for Beirut residents, was converted during the civil war into a workshop. [Changiz M Varzi/Al Jazeera]
A Voyage Along Lebanon’s Nonexistent Railways/ Please Do Not Use
Rayak was the last main Lebanese station on the Beirut-Damascus line. In 2010, the local NGO Train-Train proposed a project to turn the abandoned station into a train museum, but the project did not receive the necessary support from local authorities. [Changiz M Varzi/Al Jazeera]
A Voyage Along Lebanon’s Nonexistent Railways/ Please Do Not Use
More than 3,000 personnel worked in the Rayak train factory during World War II. [Changiz M Varzi/Al Jazeera]
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A Voyage Along Lebanon’s Nonexistent Railways/ Please Do Not Use
During World War I, Rayak also had geopolitical importance for the transfer of Ottoman troops. [Changiz M Varzi/Al Jazeera]
A Voyage Along Lebanon’s Nonexistent Railways/ Please Do Not Use
After the outbreak of Lebann's civil war, the Syrian army occupied the station and the train factory. Some of the factory's buildings were used as detention and torture centres. [Changiz M Varzi/Al Jazeera]
A Voyage Along Lebanon’s Nonexistent Railways/ Please Do Not Use
Nahr Ibrahim station, on the coastal railway, now accommodates the caretaker of a neighbouring building. [Changiz M Varzi/Al Jazeera]
A Voyage Along Lebanon’s Nonexistent Railways/ Please Do Not Use
After the end of the civil war, this line near the small town of Halat came to life once more. The symbolic Peace Train ran here in 1991, but the project did not last long. [Changiz M Varzi/Al Jazeera]
A Voyage Along Lebanon’s Nonexistent Railways/ Please Do Not Use
Neighbours have turned the backyard of the Biblos station building into a small garden. [Changiz M Varzi/Al Jazeera]
A Voyage Along Lebanon’s Nonexistent Railways/ Please Do Not Use
The Daouret Edde Jbayl train bridge on the coastal line has been rusting for decades. [Changiz M Varzi/Al Jazeera]
A Voyage Along Lebanon’s Nonexistent Railways/ Please Do Not Use
Today, the once-prestigious Tripoli station is barely recognisable. [Changiz M Varzi/Al Jazeera]
A Voyage Along Lebanon’s Nonexistent Railways/ Please Do Not Use
A 2002 campaign attempted to save Tripoli's abandoned station, but it did not succeed. [Changiz M Varzi/Al Jazeera]