Maʿan – Aqaba railway line
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| Route length: | approx. 40 km | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Gauge : | 1050 mm | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The Maʿan – Aqaba railway was a railway line in present-day Jordan , which was advanced as a branch line of the Hejaz Railway with a gauge of 1050 mm towards Aqaba . It was a war-related project from the first half of World War II that was never completed. There is now an alternative rail connection between the two cities, the Aqaba Railway.
Military strategic starting position
The Suez Canal was a primary strategic target of the Axis Powers and a key piece of infrastructure for Great Britain and its allies. It was therefore to be expected that the canal could be blocked or destroyed. In this case, precautions should be taken and alternative land transport routes should be created. These included the railway line from Port Said to Suez , which runs directly to the west of the canal, and a railway link between El Qantara and El Schatt , which runs east of the canal, but both of these were just as endangered by their proximity to the canal. An alternative transport route was offered by the project to connect Maʿan with the port city of Aqaba , creating a continuous rail link between the Red Sea and Damascus .
Starting point on the railway side
The Hejaz Railway was still passable as far as Maʿan, but traffic on the section to the south of it ceased. The aim was therefore to reach Aqaba from Maʿan. Construction began in 1940. By 1943 only one torso was completed and operated, which led from Maʿan to Ras en Naqb (Naqb Ashtar), but did not even cover half of the way to Aqaba. The course of the war after 1943 made it impossible for the Axis powers to attack the Suez Canal. This meant that the further construction of the railway was no longer necessary. The work and operations were stopped again in 1943 or 1944. The project failed due to three factors: the difficult topography , the limited resources available and the further course of the war.
The route was used again after the war to transport the degradation product from the Abiad and Wadi el Hassa phosphate mines . The phosphate was transported by train to Ras en Naqb (Naqb Ashtar) and from there by truck to the port of Aqaba.
After the Aqaba Railway went into operation in 1975, built on a different route, the transport of phosphate was carried out continuously by rail, the torso of the Maʿan – Aqaba railway line was finally abandoned, and the tracks were dismantled. The route of the Maʿan – Aqaba railway line is still clearly recognizable over long stretches of the landscape.
Worth knowing
As early as 1906, when the Hejaz Railway was built, an attempt was made to connect it with Aqaba. However, this failed because of the veto of Great Britain, which classified it as economic competition for the Suez Canal and a military threat to the Canal.
literature
- Benno Bickel: Full steam ahead through the desert. Locomotive and operating history of the Hedjazbahn and Baghdadbahn. In: Jürgen Franzke (Ed.): Bagdadbahn and Hedjazbahn. German railway history in the Middle East . Nürnberg 2003. ( ISBN 3-921590-05-1 ), pp. 139-143.
- Jürgen Franzke (Ed.): Baghdad and Hedjaz Railway. German railway history in the Middle East . Nuremberg: W. Tümmels 2003 ISBN 3-921590-05-1
- Peter Heigl, "Up to track head 17.6 gravel is diligently driven and the tracks are tamped and straightened for the second time". German civil engineers during construction work on the Hejaz and Bagdad Railway, in: Jürgen Franzke (Ed.): Bagdad Railway and Hedjaz Railway. German Railway History in the Middle East , Nuremberg 2003. ( ISBN 3-921590-05-1 ), pp. 112–119.
- James Nicolson: The Hejaz Railway . Stacey International Publishers 2005 ISBN 1-900988-81-X
- Dieter Noll (Ed.), The Hejaz Railway. A German railway in the desert, Werl 1995. ISBN 3-921700-68-X
- William Ochsenwald: The Hijaz Railroad . University Press of Virginia, Charlottesville 1980
- R. Tourret: Hedjaz Railway . Tourret Publishing, 1989 ISBN 0-905878-05-1
- Neil Robinson: World Rail Atlas . Vol. 8: The Middle East and Caucasus . 2006.
- Walter Rothschild: Palestine Railways 1945-1948 . Diss. King's College, London 2009 or 2010.
- Khairallah, Shereen: Railways in the Middle East 1856-1948 (Political and Economic Background). Beirut, Librarie du Liban, 1991 ( ISBN 1-85341-121-3 ).