Lawrence of Arabia

[Kendall Down]

I run tour groups in the Middle East and when we travel from Amman to
Petra there is a railway line off on the left. Being mildly interested
in trains, I watched it - not much else to watch out in the desert -
until one day I realised that it was the Hijaz Railway, the railroad
which Lawrence of Arabia and his Australian gunners used to blow up
(aided by assorted beduin!)

That got me interested and I started to make enquiries. It still works,
but only for freight traffic. Apparently Jordan exports lots of potash,
which is shipped by rail from the mines down to the port at Aqaba. There
is no passenger travel on it.

In the last couple of years the line north to Damascus has opened up and
although I don't believe there is a regular passenger service, you can
get steam tours that run north from Amman to Damascus. (Google for
"Hijaz Railway", "Hejaz Railway" or even "Hedjaz Railway". There are
some great pictures at http://nabataea.net/hejazad.html)

Anyway, I have finally found a travel agent in Jordan who knows someone
who knows someone and one of those someones has persuaded the powers
that be that there might be interest in running a train south! I've
talked about Lawrence and even written a short piece for them about him
and the railways and the long and the short of it is, that the trip is on!

Provided, of course, that we can get enough passengers. We need a
minimum of 75 to run this trip, but if we can get the whole trainful -
150 - then there is a real possibility that the trip might be offered on
a regular basis. Indeed, if the journey is popular enough, we might even
persuade the Saudis to open up the line down into Saudi Arabia (I can
dream, can't I?) It would be too much to expect them to run tourists
into Medina, but even if the excursions just went as far as Maidan Saleh
it would be something.

Anyway, back to reality: the trip is scheduled for September 8-October 5
and you can find details on my website
http://www.diggingsonline.com/pages/tour/hijaz.htm You can reply to this
newsgroup (which I'll keep reading for a while, though archaeology, not
trains, is my chief interest) or you can write direct to Christina at
the travel agency in...@rosecitytravel.com

Thanks,
Kendall K. Down

[Kendall Down]

On 14/04/2011 17:01, Kendall Down wrote:

> Anyway, back to reality: the trip is scheduled for September 8-October 5
> and you can find details on my website
> http://www.diggingsonline.com/pages/tour/hijaz.htm

Oh rats! The correct dates are Sep 28-Oct 5, not Sep 8. Sorry, eveyone.

Thanks,
Kendall K. Down