Betting on the Hejaz Corridor

ON THE WAY TO MECCA

The Hejaz Railway was a project of the last Ottoman Empire sultan, Abdul Hamid II. In 1900, he put forward an initiative to connect Damascus and Mecca by rail, mainly to facilitate pilgrimage to holy sites. A fundraising campaign was announced for the construction of the railway.

Construction work began that same year under the direction of German engineer Meissner. By 1908, 1,320 km of 1,050 mm gauge tracks had been built between Damascus and Medina (the line never reached Mecca). By 1914, the railway was carrying 300,000 passengers annually, including not only pilgrims but also Turkish military personnel traveling to the turbulent Hejaz province.

Throughout its history, the Hejaz Railway suffered from Bedouin raids. Arab nomads attacked the builders because the construction of the railway deprived them of income from pilgrims passing through Bedouin territories.

After the outbreak of World War I, the raids became organized, and they were led by the legendary Lawrence of Arabia (a British officer, intelligence agent, and writer who led the Arab anti-Turkish uprising).

With the end of World War I and the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in 1922, traffic on the railway ceased. Most of the rails and rolling stock were sold for scrap. Currently, only isolated sections in Syria and Jordan have been preserved.

REVIVAL OF THE LEGEND

After numerous proposals over the years, the Hejaz Railway is finally on track for revival. Transport ministers from Turkey, Jordan, and Syria convened in Amman on September 11-12 of this year, where they signed a formal memorandum of understanding to restore the railway line. Turkish Minister of Transport and Infrastructure Abdulkadir Uraloğlu stated, “The historic Hejaz Railway is being revived.”

As in the last century, construction will begin in Damascus. Turkey is assuming responsibility for developing the project's master plan, ensuring Turkish railway lines connect with Damascus, and restoring the missing 30 km of tracks in Syria. Jordan will organize the maintenance of rolling stock and provide access to the port of Aqaba on the Red Sea. Syria commits to guaranteeing the safety of construction and passage through its territory.

A PROFITABLE PROJECT

"If we set aside the romance of the old Damascus-Medina line and look at the map from an economic perspective, the idea of a new Hejaz railway is surprisingly rational," says Marat Zembatov, Director of the Center for Interdisciplinary Research at the HSE University's Institute of Public Administration and member of the BRICS Business Council transport subgroup. If implemented, it will create a freight corridor from the Red Sea to Northwest Arabia with hubs in Aqaba, Tabuk, and Medina, connecting to the ports of Jeddah and King Abdullah in Saudi Arabia. The Hejaz railway could also become a key element of the projected Trans-Arabian Railway. According to the expert's calculations, at the project's outset, we can already talk about a new cargo collection point with a volume estimated at 9-11.5 million tons per year. In 5-7 years, with the connection of all ports and industrial zones in the Trans-Arabian and Hejaz railway area, the freight potential could rise to 18-25 million tons.

The new route could work in synergy with the North-South ITC, believes Marat Zembatov. The Hejaz Corridor is becoming an additional component of the transport and logistics sustainability of the Eurasian Economic Space and will be able to connect the southern tip of the Arabian Peninsula with established international transport corridors.

Dmitry Koptev

photo: A railway line in the desert as a prologue to a major logistics concept