Railways of Iraq

Bahrain doesn’t have any railways – unless you know better? – and is not the most obvious place to find an ex-British Rail mark I buffet car. But there is one, and David Kelso took these pictures in March 2003. According to David It is being used as a restaurant. As you would expect I ate in it. The seating area has been left very much as it was but the buffet counter end has been modified as a servery rather than a stand up counter as it originally was.

Does anyone know what sort of MkI it is, or how it got to the middle east – and why?! I guess the strange construction on the end is meant to look like a steam loco.

Lawrence of Arabia train faces quiet demise

… a lack of passengers and improved highways may kill off the Hejaz once and for all, a quiet demise for a train that entered popular imagination thanks to Lawrence’s war exploits, later turned into the classic film “Lawrence of Arabia.”

On one recent morning, only four passengers climbed aboard for the Amman-Damascus trip through Jordan’s ochre deserts and Syria’s fertile plains, the railway’s only surviving service.

The 175-km (109 miles) journey takes 2-1/2 half hours by car, but on the Hejaz it can last anywhere from seven to 10, depending on seemingly endless delays at local stations and emergency stops to remove goats and vagrants from the tracks.

• Lots of information on the Hedjaz line.