An abandoned locomotive near the now defunct Hijaz railway in Saudi Arabia
762
It is a quirk of history that the Middle East was better interconnected 50 years ago than it is now. Train tracks laid down during the Ottoman era made that possible, with direct lines running from Istanbul to Medina in the South, and to Baghdad in the East. Syria is now re-starting these train lines as part of a bid to become the transport hub of the region, connecting the Mediterranean with the Arabian Gulf and the Red Sea. On May 30, following decades of inaction, a cargo train carrying 800 tons of steel left the Syrian port of Tartous on a 36-hour trip to Baghdad, running 894 kilometers through Syria and a further 429 km in Iraq. This route has now been supplemented by passenger train services to Mosul, and cargo transited from the Syrian ports of Lattakia and Tartous to the Iraqi Gulf port of Umm Qasr, via
