Lebanon Railway

Damascus - Beirut
The broad line marks the border between Lebanon and Syria.
Route length:	144 km
Gauge :	1050 mm
Maximum slope :	Adhesion 26  ‰ rack 72  ‰
Minimum radius :	100 m
Rack system :	System dept
Legend -3.0 Beirut- Maritime 5 m above sea level -2.0 Beirut Port 0.0 Beirut-St. Michel Beginning of the Beirut rack 6.3 Beirut-Hadeth 8.9 Baabda 11.9 Jamhur 16.1 Araya 20.4 Aley 22.0 Apex Lebanon Mountains 1487 m above sea level 26.4 Bhamdun 30.5 Ain Sofar Moarredsch End of rack of Beirut 37.5 Deir el-Beidar 40.0 Medere niche 43.1 Mredschatt 46.7 Dscheidita 51.8 Said Neil 55.9 Maalaka 920 m above sea level 65.1 Rayak connection to Aleppo and ... ... Baghdad Railway (standard gauge) 945 m above sea level 77.1 Yahfufa 83.0 Lebanon - Syria border Vertex Anti-Lebanon 1413 m above sea level 84.0 Jisr Remani 86.5 Serghaya 1370 m above sea level Ain el-Haur Bludane 97.6 Zebedani 1200 m above sea level Bukein 101.0 Modaya 109.8 Teqieh 1110 m above sea level 114.3 Suk Wadi Barada 980 m above sea level Birelahia Deirkanun 123.1 Ain Fijé 830 m above sea level 126.0 Achrafia 129.6 Divide Al Qadi 133.5 El Hamé 760 m above sea level 136.8 Stupid 141.0 Mezze 143.5 Damascus Barramqe Hauran Railway to Muzeirib from World War I 144.5 Damascus Kanawat 691 m above sea level Hejaz Railway towards Medina

The Lebanon Railway was a narrow-gauge railway line with a 1050 mm gauge that connected Damascus with Beirut from August 3, 1895 .

Emergence

After the Hauran Railway, it was the second railway in what is now Syria and the first in what would later become Lebanon . Both were part of the Ottoman Empire at that time .

The French Société des Chemins de fer Ottomans economiques de Beyrouth-Damas-Hauran held an Ottoman concession for the route from 1891 .

technology

Section between Teqieh and Suk Wadi Barada

The route had to cross the Lebanon Mountains and the Anti-Lebanon , which was technically complex. There were switchbacks and 35 km of rack sections . It was created in the rare gauge of 1050 mm, which came from the Algerian area and French colonial tradition .

The speeds to be achieved and the load to be attached per train were strictly limited for these technical parameters and the capacity of the train was therefore low. The tensile load in the direction to Damascus was set at 80 tons, in the opposite direction at 100 tons.

Length profile of the Beirut – Damascus railway line

In Damascus, the train initially ended with the Hauranbahn in Barramqe station. The Hejaz Railway , also built with a gauge of 1050 mm, had no track connection to the Lebanon Railway due to the competitive situation with the Hauran Railway before the First World War . After the First World War, the Lebanon Railway in Damascus also ended at the Hejaz Railway Station, Damascus-Kanawat.

Locomotives

	Adhesion locomotives	Rack locomotives
Illustration
Wheel alignment :	1'C	C1'zz
Manufacturer:	SLM Winterthur
Fixed wheelbase:	2800 mm	3000 mm
Total wheelbase:	5000 mm	5250 mm
Impeller diameter:	750 mm	750 mm
Drive wheel diameter:	1050 mm	1030 mm
Gear wheel diameter:		688 mm
Empty weight:	30.7 t	33.0 t
Service weight:	40.0 t	44.0 t
Adhesion weight:	30.0 t	34.0 t
Traction:	5000 daN	Adhesion: 5000 daN Gear: +5000 daN
Cylinder diameter:	380 mm	380 mm
Piston stroke:	550 mm	Adhesion: 500 mm. Gear: 450 mm
Boiler overpressure:	12 atm.	12 atm.
Grate area:	1.4 m²	1.63 m²
Total heating area:	80.4 m²	95.80 m²
Water supply:	4.6 m³	5.0 m³
Coal supply:	2.0 t	2.5 t

The two types of locomotives procured from the Swiss Locomotive and Machine Works (SLM) had proven themselves at a number of railway companies. The first machines were already needed for the construction of the adhesion line. They therefore had to be dismantled and transported across the Lebanon Mountains by car.

The tank locomotives for mixed adhesion and gear drive corresponded to a standard design developed by SLM with two pairs of cylinders and separate drive mechanisms for adhesion and gear drive. The running axle under the driver's cab enabled an optimal adhesion weight, since with decreasing water and coal supplies the running axle in particular was relieved and the adhesion weight hardly decreased. The gear mechanism was housed in its own frame between the middle and front adhesion axes. The rear of the two gear axles was driven by the two inner cylinders and was connected to the front by a pair of coupling rods . Because of the limited space, controls based on the Joy system were chosen for both cylinder pairs . The machines were equipped with vacuum brakes , counter-pressure brakes and one mechanical brake each acting on all drive axles and on the two drive gears .

Route description

The train started in the port of Beirut and led to the city. The first five kilometers outside of Beirut were on a fertile plain just a few meters above sea level. Then the ascent began with mostly 70 per mille gradient to the watershed at an altitude of 1487 meters above sea level, which was only interrupted on short sections by 25 per mille steep adhesion stretches. Araya and Aley helped switchbacks in overcoming the height difference. After a short tunnel at the apex, the route initially had a gradient of up to 60 per thousand, which was overcome with the help of toothed racks. Later, the adhesion drive was enough to get down to Maalaka station (920 meters above sea level) on the edge of the Bekaa plain .

Beginning of the rack section behind Beirut.

Road crossing over the rack section at Jamhur.

For who scale the Mount Lebanon in Araya served a hairpin .

Station facility in Maalaka. Here the cogwheel locomotives were replaced by the adhesion locomotives.

Locomotives were usually changed in Maalaka, the cogwheel locomotives were replaced by the adhesion machines. The railway made a curve to the north in order to cross the Anti-Lebanon via a conveniently located saddle at 1,413 meters above sea level. Because the gradients did not exceed 25 per mille, the adhesion operation was sufficient. After 146 kilometers, the trains reached the Syrian capital Damascus at 687 meters above sea level, after having climbed a total of 2033 meters.

development

The former station building in Beirut was able to retain its character despite the closure.

The civil wars in Lebanon and Syria brought traffic to a standstill. Still existing track section with rack.

The Société des Chemins de fer Ottomans economiques de Beyrouth-Damas-Hauran merged with a Belgian company at the end of the 1890s and now traded under the name Société Ottomane du Chemin de fer Damas-Hamah et Prolongements (DHP) .

From 1906 the Rayak railway had a connection to Aleppo and from there to the Baghdad Railway . In order to create a technical connection to the Baghdad Railway, this line was designed in standard gauge. In Rayak, because of the different track widths, all goods had to be reloaded and all passengers had to change trains. This cumbersome procedure was only ended in 1982 with the completion of a direct, standard-gauge line between Homs and Damascus. At this point at the latest, the Rayak - Homs (- Aleppo) connection was also given up.

The Lebanon Railway was destroyed on the Lebanese side during the Lebanese civil war between 1975 and 1990. On the Syrian side, operations initially continued to the Serghaya border station , but fell into disrepair over the years. Finally, in the urban area of ​​Damascus, the rail connection to the tracks of the Hejaz Railway was interrupted, so that an island operation was created. The traffic was continuously reduced and consisted only of tourist weekend traffic between the train stations El Hamé (km 12), where the vehicles were also parked, Judeidet Al Qadi and Ain Fidjé (km 22). The civil war in Syria has brought traffic to a standstill, as has rail traffic throughout the country.

literature

• Roman Abt : Beirut-Damascus: combined adhesion and rack railway In: Schweizerische Bauzeitung (SBZ). (archived in e-periodicals, the ETH-Bibliothek):
  Part I. . In: SBZ, Volume 27 (1896), Issue 13 (PDF; 5.9 MB)
  Part II . In: SBZ, Volume 27 (1896), Issue 14 (PDF; 3.7 MB)
  Part III. . In: SBZ, Volume 27 (1896), Issue 15 (PDF; 3.2 MB)
  Part IV. (End) . In: SBZ, Volume 27 (1896), Issue 16 (PDF; 3.2 MB)
• G. Long: A Remarkable Railway. In: Practical Mechanics'. August 1937. (Reprinted in: HaRakevet. 95 = Vol. 25/4, December 2011, p. 23)
• Johannes Müller: Syria and the Hejaz Railway. (= Dampf & Reise, Überseeische Bahnen. 1989, 1). Röhr, Krefeld 1989, ISBN 3-88490-177-X .
• Dieter Noll (Ed.): The Hejaz Railway. A German railway in the desert. German Society for Railway History, Werl 1995, ISBN 3-921700-68-X .
• Neil Robinson: World Rail Atlas and historical summary. Volume 8: The Middle East and Caucasus. World Rail Atlas, London 2006, ISBN 954-12-0128-8 .
• Accident on the Hauran Railway. In: The Locomotive . 1904, p. 49. (online)

swell

Visit as part of a study trip of the DGEG in February 2007.

See also

• Rail transport in Lebanon
• Rail transport in Syria

Notes and individual references

1. ↑ kilometers at the time of construction; today's mileage in Syria counts from Damascus.
2. ↑ D. Seiler: Steam in the Orient. In: Lok Magazin . 3/2002, pp. 62-65.
3. ^ Current mileage in Syria; When the line was built, the kilometers from Beirut were counted - see table.