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STEAM TRAINS ON THE DESERT TRACKS OF THE OLD HEDJAZ RAILWAY

Lawrence's Trail
Nick Lera embarks on a steam-hauled adventure following the trail of Lawrence of Arabia's famous exploits on the legendary Hedjaz Railway. The trip takes us on the unusual track gauge of 1050cm through Jordan and Syria to the Lebanese border, with authentic locomotives, some dating back to the Ottoman Empire.

Highlights of the Route
Our train from Petra, 'Rose Red City Of The East', crosses the great two-tiered stone viaduct at Amman, stops at Bosra's unique Crusader Fort incorporating a Roman amphitheatre, and takes us to the semi-derelict repair shops in Damascus, where over a dozen rusting and damaged locomotives still await repairs after

Lawrence's raids in 1918. The trip ends with a run up the scenic Shejara Gorge to the Lebanese border, hauled by Damascus' oldest engine, a Swiss 2-6-0T built in 1894.

Exclusive Archive
The line onwards to Beirut through the cedars of Lebanon was closed permanently by civil war in 1972, but Nick Lera was there with his film camera in 1968 and produced a unique record of the Swiss rack-and-pinion (cog) engines hard at work. More rare film shows a special steam train in the upper part of the Yarmuk Gorge in 1982, on the old route to Haifa past the Golan Heights, cut by Zionist guerillas in 1946.

Locomotives in Steam

No.
751 162
263
304 23
82
51
71
62

Type
2-6-0T
2-8-0
2-8-0
0-10-0RT
2-8-2
4-6-2
2-8-2
2-8-2
2-6-2T

Date
1894
1914
1918
1926
1952
1953
1955
1956
1956

Maker
SLM Winterthur, Switzerland
Borsig, Berlin, Germany
Hartmann, Germany
SLM Winterthur
Robert Stephenson & Hawthorn, Newcastle, UK
Nippon, Japan
Jung, Germany
Haine St Pierre, Belgium
Haine St Pierre

 


Duration: 55 minutes.

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