The Hanzhi Railway from Damascus to Medina through the Hanzhi region of Saudi Arabia is one of the main railways of the Ottoman Empire and the Turkish Empire and an important route through the desert. The railway was built in 1900 on the order of Abdul Hamid II, Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, and planned to extend to Mecca for people to make pilgrimages to the holy city. But its main motivation is to strengthen the empire's control over the most remote provinces of the empire.
When the First World War broke out, all construction work was suspended, and the railway was still 400 kilometers away from its final destination. When the Arabs are led by British strategic officials. TE Lawrence revolted against Turkish rule, and the railway became the main target. Today, most of the railway is abandoned in the desert, sand engulfed the track, collapsed carriages and engines, and bushes overgrown with bushes.
Even before World War II, Bedouins in the adjacent desert area often attacked the railway because it challenged their control of the pilgrims' route to the holy site. For centuries, ancient Arab tribes have guided and guarded pilgrims who crossed the harsh desert.
Traditionally, in order to reach the holy city, pilgrims travel on caravans and camels. The journey is completed in forty days to two months. When the railway opened in 1908, the arduous two-month journey was reduced to a comfortable and cheap four-day journey. As the news spread, thousands of pilgrims from Russia, Central Asia, Iran and Iraq gathered in Damascus for a train ride. By 1912, the railway transported 30,000 pilgrims each year, and by 1914, the number of pilgrims each year had increased to 300,000.
At the same time, attacks on railroads became more frequent, and soon after, train journeys became more dangerous than traveling through hot and arid deserts in two months.
The final destruction of this railway occurred during the Arab Uprising that began in 1916, when the Turkish army began to use railway as the main mode of transportation of its troops and supplies. This gives the Arabs more reason and opportunity to retaliate against the railway. The guerrillas commanded by British officers successfully blew up most of the orbit. Later TE Lawrence joined the attack and destroyed countless bridges.
After the First World War, the railway was abandoned, despite several attempts to revive it. In fact, some parts of the Hanzhi Railway are still in operation, such as the section from Amman in Jordan to Damascus in Syria, and the other section is still in operation from the phosphate mining area near Ma’an to the Gulf of Aqaba. The train used many primitive carriages and locomotives, running on steam and coal. The oldest locomotive still in service was built in Germany in 1898!
The abandoned part of the Hanzhi Railway is located south of Amman in Saudi Arabia, where railway enthusiasts will find many abandoned stations, round houses, rusty locomotives and cars.
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