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Railway lines once connected the Middle East

economist.com

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Re: Railway lines once connected the Middle East

#81

Post by yyyk »

dredmorbius wrote: post #61
rendall wrote: post #20

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. As an aside, TIL that there are actually two Tripolis, one in Libya and the other in Lebanon. I have hea…

This is similarly true of aircraft, which are immensely vulnerable to attack, and which typically don't overfly regions of conflict, as well as sea traffic, which is somewhat less vulnerable, but may be subject to closed access to specific routes, usually by way of canals. These differ from rail in that the routes are not typically quite so constrained. But as a general rule, commerce and trade rely on good relations…

>Another transportation mode which existed in the Middle East was the Trans-Arabian pipeline....

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.

Re: Railway lines once connected the Middle East

#82

Post by pjmlp »

mrsuprawsm wrote: post #77
pjmlp wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, some people enjoy arriving all wet to the workplace.

This comment is clearly silly, since in the Netherlands - a rather rainy country - approximately 25% of people commute to work by bicycle. You can wear a coat and rain trousers if you feel like it.

I know they do, doesn't mean I want to, and have cycled during Swiss and Scandinavian winters during a couple of years about 20 years ago.

Re: Railway lines once connected the Middle East

#83

Post by AlgorithmicTime »

Gigachad wrote: post #45
foxes wrote: post #5

We really need to eliminate car dependence in our cities.

Life is so much more enjoyable when you move away from the suburbs and get rid of your car. The freedom to just walk to your destination and having everything within walking range is priceless.

I disagree. The freedom to get in my car and go anywhere in the country, in the company of my entire family, no less, is priceless.

Re: Railway lines once connected the Middle East

#84

Post by dredmorbius »

yyyk wrote: post #81
dredmorbius wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is similarly true of aircraft, which are immensely vulnerable to attack, and which typically don't overfly regions of conflict, as well as sea traffic, which is somewhat less vulnerable, but may be subject to closed access to specific routes, usually by way of canals. These differ from rail in that the routes are not typically quite so constrained. But as a general rule, commerce and trade rely on good relations…

>Another transportation mode which existed in the Middle East was the Trans-Arabian pipeline.... 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.

My understanding is that TAP's significance ended largely with the 1967 war, though I'm not especially familiar with it.

Its existence does explain much of the strategic significance of Beruit (the pipeline's Mediterranean terminus) however.

Re: Railway lines once connected the Middle East

#85

Post by breckenedge »

photochemsyn wrote: post #24

Some 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 tra…

That’s fascinating, I hadn’t come across that. Britain must have needed a ridiculous amount of oil as they were also importing from Mexico at the time. According to Tuchman’s The Zimmerman Telegram, Mexican oil is one of the big reasons that Germany tried to form an alliance with Mexico. Cutting off that oil would have hindered their navy.

Re: Railway lines once connected the Middle East

#86

Post by yyyk »

dredmorbius wrote: post #84
yyyk wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Another transportation mode which existed in the Middle East was the Trans-Arabian pipeline.... 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.

My understanding is that TAP's significance ended largely with the 1967 war, though I'm not especially familiar with it. Its existence does explain much of the strategic significance of Beruit (the pipeline's Mediterranean terminus) however.

>My understanding is that TAP's significance ended largely with the 1967 war, though I'm not especially familiar with it.

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.

Re: Railway lines once connected the Middle East

#87

Post by ant6n »

solatic wrote: post #19

At least in Israel, many of the old lines, even if they still operated today, would have been long obsolete. A daily train leaving Haifa at 8:30 and reaching Jaffa by lunch? Three, four hours? The same line today makes the journey in an hour, and there are plans on the table to build additional tracks to cut that down to a half hour. People commute from Haifa to Tel Aviv, with three (soon four) tracks passing through…

If the line would be operating today, it would have long been upgraded. It's kind of like saying if the line between Paris and London would still be operating, it would be obsolete. But since it was kept in operation, and demand was there, eventually Eurostar was built, doing the trip in 2-3h that was previously overnight.

Re: Railway lines once connected the Middle East

#88

Post by gromitss »

Gigachad wrote: post #45
foxes wrote: post #5

We really need to eliminate car dependence in our cities.

Life is so much more enjoyable when you move away from the suburbs and get rid of your car. The freedom to just walk to your destination and having everything within walking range is priceless.

No post body was provided.

Re: Railway lines once connected the Middle East

#89

Post by Mlller »

photochemsyn wrote: post #24

Some 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 tra…

But “without the need to confront the British over Kuwait” seems to indicate that this railway project in itself was good for keeping peace because it decreased the conflict potential.

Re: Railway lines once connected the Middle East

#90

Post by gromitss »

jimmyed wrote: post #12

Just 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.

No post body was provided.
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