Railway lines once connected the Middle East
economist.com
economist.com
As an aside, TIL that there are actually two Tripolis, one in Libya and the other in Lebanon.
I have heard references to an ancient, historical Tripoli for years, even in the lyrics of Onward, Christian Soldier. I only knew about the Libyan city and thought the article was mistaken when it referred to "Tripoli, Beirut and Haifa" together as Levantine ports, but "The last train left Tripoli for Beirut at the start of Lebanon’s civil war in 1975" tipped me off that my geography was off, since a train from Libya to Lebanon would not have been possible after Israel closed her borders.
Trains can also indicate war :) They are crucial for logistics, and were especially so before WW2. My country uses European gauge rails despite starting with Russian gauge rails because during WW1 Germany occupied big parts of it and switched the gauge to incorporate it in their WW1 supply train.
BTW you could deduce if some country wanted to invade the other or defend itself by looking at the rails and roads they invest in - if the lines go along the border they are more likely to defend, if the lines go perpendicular to the border - they are more likely to attack.
Russian and Soviet rail profile tend to be bigger (taller by maybe an inch) but that doesn't really impact the trains aside from transitioning from one to the other.
Interestingly, 3.5 in happens to be almost the ideal change. The bottom of a normal rail profile is a bit over 6 in wide, so the new spike hole is right between the two old holes. If the difference was any larger or smaller, the new spike wouldn't hold as well.
Edit: Corrected one of the names. Thanks @egiboy.
https://medium.com/war-is-boring/massive-rail-networks-made-...
For example, the Polish "Trojmiasto" (Gdynia, Gdańsk, Sopot) could be translated as Tripolis into Greek.
Given how urban the ancient Mediterranean civilization was, such clusters could well develop.
A tangent, but I’ve often pondered about the economic and societal value of other inanimate objects; for instance, what the economic benefit of a barricade has always fascinated and perplexed me.
One one hand, a barricade prevents free the movement of services and goods. On the other hand, without them there would be less security, leading to less economic activity.
In the case of aircraft, there have been a number of shoot-downs of civillian craft. Wikipedia lists at least 39 such incidents here, a starting number since 1980, contrasting to the argument that relations have become increasingly peaceable in recent decades.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_airliner_shootdown_inc...
One of the more notable instances of ships denied access to a shorter route was the case of the Russian navy's Baltic fleet in the Russo-Japanese war. After the Russian fleet After mistaking a British fishing fleet for Japanese torpedo boats in the North Sea, and sinking them in what is known as the Dogger Bank Incident, Britain denied Russia use of the Suez Canal (by some accounts). The Baltic fleet were forced to go the long way 'round, via the Cape of Good Hope and South Africa, and arrived in very poor condition (having dparted in not much better) and suffered a humilating defeat at the Battle of Tsushima which helped in part precipitate the failed 1905 Russian Revolution.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Tsushima
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogger_Bank_incident
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Japanese_War
The logistical task of moving a coal-fired naval fleet around the world was formidible, with the Baltic fleet requiring forty coaling stops. The round-the-world tour of the US's own Great White Fleet shortly after (1907--9) was in part a tour de force of US claims on fueling and service ports along the route. The emergence of oil and nuclear-powered vessels was transformative to naval power, the former beginning with the British fleet immediately prior to the First World War, the latter during and after the Cold War, though largely limited to aircraft carriers and submarines.
Arguably, whales are another case in which long-distance mobility is enabled by attractive prospects at widely-sepatarted locations (krill and other feeding grounds), and a lack of any credible predators or enemies. The very largest whales are an evolutionarily modern development, having grown from smaller species largely inhabiting coastal waters. The emergence of a capable predator (humans) very nearly proved fatal to all great whale species.
Another transportation mode which existed in the Middle East was the Trans-Arabian pipeline. As with railroads, pipelines rely on safe passage along a land route. Most critically, the TAP crossed the Golan Heights, which came under Israeli control during the 1967 Six Day War.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Arabian_Pipeline
And in the US, when highway construction was largely a local affair, wealthier cities and towns tended to ignore routes outside city limits, counties tended to ignore those extending beyond county lines, and states those which extended beyond their own boundaries. One of the benefits of a nationaly highway and interstate system (and there were national post roads and highways before the inauguration of the US Interstate Highway System in 1956) was in creating an overarching interest in a national transportation infrastructure, with commensurate planning and financing.
Even today, there are few boundary marks as evident as where one jurisdiction's highway work ends and another begins, particularly between wealthier and less-flush jurisdictions, be they towns, counties, or states. The demarcation is literally paved on the ground.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_Highway_System#Fede...
As wiki points out, TAP kept running until 1976. Technology changed with supertankers, so Saudi decided to stop haggling over fees and not use it. Same thing for ME rail routes - they all required investment, and most ME countries had different priorities.
Its existence does explain much of the strategic significance of Beruit (the pipeline's Mediterranean terminus) however.
The TAP stopped most operations because Saudi discovered they can use supertankers through international waters and pay much less in pipeline fees. The 1967 war may have actually given TAP a few years more - it closed the Suez canal for awhile, so tankers had to go the long way around. Suez reopened in June 1975 and soon after the Saudis stopped using TAP.
>Its existence does explain much of the strategic significance of Beruit (the pipeline's Mediterranean terminus) however.
TAP's terminus was at Sidon. As for Beirut, it was strategic for a different reason: The British Empire developed Haifa as a big Med port, but Arab state could not use it after Israel was founded; Beirut was the alternative for Haifa they could use.
Or, take the line to Jerusalem. The old line took a twisty, no-tunnels approach up the hills to Jerusalem that took hours. It was mostly only used to get out of the city in case snow blocked the main entrance, because it was so slow. The new line, with tunnels and bridges, cuts right through and makes the journey to Tel Aviv in an hour.
It doesn't really matter what the Ottomans or the British built, because it was built for a level of traffic of a largely rural, empty empire. It would never have met modern needs. As populations grew across the Middle East, even a Middle East at peace, all of these lines would have long been dismembered anyway, and replaced with lines designed to actually meet the transportation needs of the people who lived there.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_urfQTLk_g
The author says that the line closed in March 2020, but maybe it has since been reopened?
Anyway, live close by.
The train station at Malha was closed 2020 because of COVID because it was a scenic/tourist route. There was discussion of shutting it down permanently but it didn't happen. I used to take it every week for a coding-teaching gig 5 years ago.
It will likely either reopen when tourism reaches a pre-covid level in a year or two or will be converted to a light-rail station.
This railway is on my visit list. I hope that tourism recovers enough for it to reopen.
If you look hard enough you will find my contributions in early-mid newgrounds (inglor day, zombie inglor, the inglor dance and 10k bbs posts :))
Anyway - good taste and nice to meet
Here's a pretty comprehensive discussion of the history, which actually points to World War One being initiated as the first of many wars by colonial powers over control of Middle Eastern oil:
> "By 1912, German industry and government realized that oil was the fuel of its economic future and similarly to Britain it needed a supply of its own that would reduce their import dependency. Upon discovering more fields between Mosul and Baghdad where the last part of the rail link would go led to further potential friction with Britain and the necessity to protect its interests in the areas that surrounded the link which the Deutsche Bank negotiated in the same year. This would’ve provided the German government with an overland route to ship the oil out of Mesopatamia without the need to confront the British over Kuwait." [1]
[1] https://carlcymrushistoryblog.wordpress.com/2014/04/18/the-b...
The idea that competition for oil was a major player in that is only viable if you ignore the minor fact that causes happen before actions. To summarize the underlying assertions: the Berlin-Baghdad railway, built in 1889, was needed to transport the new critical resource of oil from its discovery in the Ottoman Empire in 1908 for the insatiable demand of coal-fired dreadnoughts like HMS Dreadnought (1906). (Yes, coal-fired--as far as I'm aware, all of the German capital ships built or planned before or during WWI were primarily coal-fired. The decisive move from coal to oil happens largely at the tail end of WWI, way too late to be a major factory in strategic thinking to motivate foreign policy in the run up to WWI.)
I should get round to reading https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Prize:_The_Epic_Quest_for_...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Sea_oil
It looks like the Germans had access to it, also?
I love watching the landscape roll past the train window.
In fairness, that's also because Cairo Metro Line 3 was extended to Heliopolis in the same year.
The Cairo Metro, while vastly inadequate for the city's size, is still the largest, busiest and fastest-growing metro in all Africa.
As a side note: anyone else wonder why the English speaking world refers to the region as "the middle East"? To me it is the near East. Not just because of proximity but I've never heard or read about a near East from anglo sources. What is the rationale?
> The origin of the term "Middle East" is considered to be in the British India Office during the 1850s. It was popularized by Alfred Thayer Mahan, an American naval strategist who was referring to the region between Arabia and India in 1902. Mahan’s definition of the Middle East was the area around the Persian Gulf. Sir Ignatius Valentine Chirol further enlarged this definition to cater for the Asian regions whose territories extended to India.
> Prior to the Second World War, another term, the "Near East", denoted the eastern shores of the Mediterranean in addition to regions centered around Turkey. Middle East was used by the British while naming its command in Egypt in the late 1930s. It was after this usage that the term became widely used in the West. In 1946, the Middle East Institute began operating in Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States.
A substantial portion of my childhood is 20-40 minute car rides punctuating every excursion, every new experience. Maybe it’s family time, but mostly I was on my Nintendo DS or GameBoy Color (or reading and getting carsick) and ignoring legs made restless from lack of use. Freedom has its price.
I'm not saying this is the primary reason to have cars and live in the suburbs, but not being forced to share space with every random person in your vicinity is no small thing.
Also, the plenty of people get killed in cars.
It's also true that people very, very commonly move to the suburbs once they have children, and it's not because those people are all morons.
It’s true that progressives are wild about transit, but I wish more conservatives resisted the urge to view cars as the natural political opposite.
I don't really disagree with your overall stance, but those two do often go hand in hand. Perhaps that's why progress is slow on that front.
Then there is the whole issue that local city transportation is pretty lousy, even in Europe.
Sure big cities have it good on the innermost district, live a bit more on the outskirts or in a smaller town and taxi becomes the only option for those not willing to wait between 1-2h for each bus into each direction plus additional commute.
A 30m drive quickly turns into 2h.
There are cars specially tailored for people with disabilities, and electric wheelchairs are only practicable in sunny weather.
In the Netherlands, at least, electric wheelchairs are out in all weather.
You can wear a coat and rain trousers if you feel like it.
For example, in my city, for distances inside the urban core, bicycle is usually the fastest mode of transport, public transport is about 1.5x - 2x the bicycle (fine if you are feeling lazy), and car is 1.5x - 3x the bicycle depending on time of day and associated traffic levels.
Sure, if the weather is horrible and I am feeling lazy, I might use my car instead of jumping on the bike, but often after reaching my destination I'll realize that it wasn't really worth taking the car.
Or you could walk or take a bicycle (e.g., Amsterdam/Netherlands).
First: one doesn't have to cycle all the time. If the weather is bad, or if you just don't feel like it, then one can certainly just not cycle. Feel free to take transit or your car/taxi/uber.
But by designing 'human scale' neighbourhoods this gives people the option of choosing their mode of transportation, instead of being forced to own/operate an expensive piece of equipment that sits idle and depreciates most of the time.
That being said, as someone who cycled in the Before Times to work in Toronto for ~9 months out of year,† I've found the risk of rain was more of a deterrent than actual rain. The number of times I was actually commuting in the rain as quite small over the course of a year.
When I started cycling I would look at the weather forecast, and not take my bicycle if there was a decent chance of rain. And most times it ended up not raining anyway. So at some point I bought rain gear and stuck it in a pannier: I no longer bothered looking at the forecast.
Of course one doesn't need to go for all the funny looking clothing. A simple poncho folded away can be sufficient:
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLM_mTUuHlc
† Often the road conditions were garbage in January and February because a lack of decent practices in snow clearing. Those were the months I generally skipped: I often cycled into December (when it was still 'dry') and often re-started in (mid-)March.
Of course they still own two cars and drive to work despite it being "only" a 15 minute bike ride. They are both MDs.
Yeah, I always marvel at Americans who think that Europeans walk, cycle, or take public transit everywhere. Some do, especially students and retirees. However, for working people, car is still king.
The book was somewhat uplifting, portraying the age where the entire world was accessible and you could go anywhere and folks would bow their heads before you everywhere.
Great achievement and good progress. But it came with a price.