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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Lebanon
Index
Lebanon used to have a patchwork railroad system. From the
central Syrian railroad depot of Homs, two standard-gauge lines
entered Lebanon. One line passed down the coast to Tripoli and
Beirut and ended just north of the southern oil terminal at Az
Zahrani; the other came down the Biqa Valley to Riyaq, near
Shtawrah. A narrow-gauge, mountain railroad running from Beirut
through Riyaq to Damascus linked these two lines. The coastal line
was still being used for occasional fuel shipments from the Tripoli
refinery to Beirut in the late 1970s, but the line's southern
section to Az Zahrani was cut in several places just south of
Beirut. French companies had begun limited repairs on the damaged
line but had to stop as renewed violence erupted in February
1984.The Biqa Valley line, antiquated already in the 1960s, finally
went out of commission during fighting in 1975-76. Finally, the
Beirut-Damascus line was verging on obsolescence even before the
outbreak of war.
By 1987 it was believed that no trains were functioning
anywhere on Lebanon's 407-kilometer system, and the prospects for
the rail system's recovery were poor. Canadian consultants studied
a possible revival of the coastal line in 1983, but security
conditions made rehabilitation impossible. If the railroads are
ever revived, the coastal line will get priority.
Data as of December 1987
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