We really need to eliminate car dependence in our cities.
Perhaps, but the existence of regional rail transit on the Istanbul-to-Basra scale is only weakly connected to "car dependence in cities".
Railway lines once connected the Middle East
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Re: Railway lines once connected the Middle East
#22Just finished reading Murder on the Orient Express yesterday and made a (naive) mental note to travel the route sometime. This shattered that dream for sure. 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.
Wait p, folks don’t bow their heads before you everywhere? You’re just doing it wrong, m8!
Re: Railway lines once connected the Middle East
#23Just finished reading Murder on the Orient Express yesterday and made a (naive) mental note to travel the route sometime. This shattered that dream for sure. 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.
The imperialist approach you have may be better suited for a different century.
Re: Railway lines once connected the Middle East
#24Some historians point to the Berlin-to-Baghdad railway (barely mentioned in the article) as playing a primary role in the outbreak of World War I. The naval forces of Britain had made the decision to switch from coal to oil, and that mean Britain would have a more maneuverable and faster fleet than Germany - so Germany followed suit. Unlike British sea access to Persian oil at the time, the only German option was transport of oil from Mesopotamia via the Berlin to Baghdad railway.
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...
Re: Railway lines once connected the Middle East
#25Quoted post unavailable.
The Night of the Bridges had nothing to do with the war of independence as it happened in 1946 and was intended to disrupt the logistics of the British army not to prevent an invasion by Arab states.
Re: Railway lines once connected the Middle East
#26This article made me think about how the presence of trains indicate peace. Trains are so vulnerable to attack. Their existence depends on everyone with access to the tracks to trust and agree with their purpose. I suspect if we're mourning these trains, we also mourn the loss of peace and stability in the region. As an aside, TIL that there are actually two Tripolis, one in Libya and the other in Lebanon. I have hea…
Yes, it seems like many of the railway lines featured in this article followed the path of the Taurus Express (basically an extension of the famous Simplon Orient Express) and were once promoted to European tourists as a safe, comfortable way to visit the sights of the Middle East. Many posters even featured Wagons-Lits (a sleeper and dining car provider analogous to the Pullman Company in the United States) which were the epitome of luxury travel at that time. The posters from that bygone era are quite impressive and enticing, hopefully peace will return to the region sometime soon:
Re: Railway lines once connected the Middle East
#27We really need to eliminate car dependence in our cities.
Perhaps, but the existence of regional rail transit on the Istanbul-to-Basra scale is only weakly connected to "car dependence in cities".
Mmm don't sell it too short. Long distance passengers become non-drivers art least initially at either end. Good city-center stations will not have parking or rental cars nearby.
Re: Railway lines once connected the Middle East
#28This article made me think about how the presence of trains indicate peace. Trains are so vulnerable to attack. Their existence depends on everyone with access to the tracks to trust and agree with their purpose. I suspect if we're mourning these trains, we also mourn the loss of peace and stability in the region. As an aside, TIL that there are actually two Tripolis, one in Libya and the other in Lebanon. I have hea…
The trains between India and Pakistan also runs regular during peacetime and gets suspended on first indication of conflict.
Re: Railway lines once connected the Middle East
#29This article made me think about how the presence of trains indicate peace. Trains are so vulnerable to attack. Their existence depends on everyone with access to the tracks to trust and agree with their purpose. I suspect if we're mourning these trains, we also mourn the loss of peace and stability in the region. As an aside, TIL that there are actually two Tripolis, one in Libya and the other in Lebanon. I have hea…
(FYI, there are many more Tripolis. It's not a very distinctive name.)
Re: Railway lines once connected the Middle East
#30This article made me think about how the presence of trains indicate peace. Trains are so vulnerable to attack. Their existence depends on everyone with access to the tracks to trust and agree with their purpose. I suspect if we're mourning these trains, we also mourn the loss of peace and stability in the region. As an aside, TIL that there are actually two Tripolis, one in Libya and the other in Lebanon. I have hea…
> This article made me think about how the presence of trains indicate peace. Trains are so vulnerable to attack. Their existence depends on everyone with access to the tracks to trust and agree with their purpose. I suspect if we're mourning these trains, we also mourn the loss of peace and stability in the region.
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.