Rail transport in Yemen

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In Yemen , there are no railways, however, there was in the 2010s-years projects to build a railway network.

history

Several attempts have been made to build railroads in what is now Yemen. The Chemin de fer Hodeida-Sanaa built only a few kilometers and was never in operation, the Aden Railway was in operation for a short time, and the Ottoman Empire's proposal to extend the Hejaz Railway beyond Medina to al-Hudaida was never implemented. From 2005 new projects were launched to connect Yemen to the international railway network.

Chemin de fer Hodeida-Sanaa

A French company under Ottoman law, the Compagnie Ottomane du Chemin de fer Hodeida-Sanaa et Embranchement , planned to build a railway line from al-Hudaida to Sanaa , the capital of the Kingdom of Yemen . The most important donor was the French Banque française pour le commerce et l'industrie , which is now part of BNP Paribas . They built a 17 km stretch from Ras al-Katib, the site of a new port to al-Hudaida. As the name of the company suggests, this meter-gauge route was to be the beginning of a route to Sanaa, which should have led inland via Obal, Sihâm, Mefhak to Sanaa and then to Amran. The track led along the long headland in front of the city, which lies between the open sea and Jabanah (Djebana). When a little less than half of the line was built in January 1912, it was destroyed by fire from the Italian protected cruiser Piedmont during the Italo-Turkish War , which meant the end of the construction project. The company sued the Italian Government to a compensation of 200,000 liras for damage to French property.

Aden Railway

The British Aden branch was founded in 1839 when units of the Royal Navy went ashore. She was part of the Bombay Presidency of British India . After the punitive expedition to Ethiopia ended in 1868, part of the field railway used there was brought to Aden. The material was to be used to build a non-public railway from the quay to the post office and possibly on to the military barracks, the material was still in storage in 1873. During the First World War , a meter-gauge railway line from Al Maalla, the port district of Aden , to Al Shikh Othman on the border with the Aden Protectorate was built and commissioned on January 15, 1916. It was used to transport supplies for the British troops who fought against the Turks at Al Shikh Othman. In 1922 the route was extended via Lahidsch and Al Khaddad. The superstructure and rolling stock of the 46 km long route came mainly from the Bombay, Baroda and Central India Railway , the operation was led by the Indian North Western Railway. There were ideas to extend the railway 65 km to the border of the Kingdom of Yemen or to Mecca , where the connection to the Hejaz Railway was planned. The operation of the railway was not profitable, so it was discontinued at the end of July 1929 and was canceled in the 1930s.

Modern projects

In 2010, Yemen announced the start of a $ 3.5 billion project to build a railroad network. The project was part of the plan to modernize the country's infrastructure. 2,500 km of railway lines for passenger and freight traffic were to be built, which would run from the border with Saudi Arabia in the west along the coast via the port of Aden to Oman . Here there would be a connection to a likewise planned project of a railway to connect the states of the Gulf Cooperation Council with one another. After October 2013 no more notifications about this project were received.

literature

  • Jacques Thobie: Pouvoir, Espace, Finance: le Hodeida-Sanaa — un Chemin de Fer dans les Sables 1899–1913 . In: Turkish Economic and Social History (1071-1920) . University of California Press, 1993.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Glyn Williams: Railways in Yemen. Retrieved November 18, 2018 .
  2. ^ Charles Stephenson: A Box of Sand: The Italo-Ottoman War 1911-1912 . Tattered Flag, 2014, ISBN 978-0-9576892-2-0 , pp. 162-163 .
  3. ^ Aden Railway. In: FIBIwiki. Families In British India Society (FIBIS), accessed November 18, 2018 .
  4. ^ Railways of Aden . ( bpadenkids.com [PDF]).
  5. ↑ Yemen to launch $ 3.5bn railway . In: The National . January 17, 2010 ( thenational.ae [accessed November 18, 2018]).
  6. ↑ GCC rail network to link all 6 Gulf states by 2018 . October 29, 2013 ( gulfnews.com ).