OLD BEIRUT TRAIN STATION

The old Beirut railway station is worth a visit. Take Rue du Fleuve to Rue Ibrahim Pacha. On your right are the garages of the national bus company. If you are asked a question, kindly ask permission to pass (access is at the discretion of the guard: sometimes it passes, sometimes it passes, once, not...). Behind the hangars, the station is still intact. It preserves its old buildings made of yellow stones and red bricks. Several locomotives dating from the late 19th century (including one from 1894) are invaded by grass. Real museum pieces! Decayed cars are visible. A quiet space in the middle of the greenery. A small oasis in Beirut.

The Lebanese railways have not been operational since the war. The first Beirut-Damascus line dates back to 1895. The network had 413 km of tracks: the line along the coast was particularly famous for the beauty of the landscapes it crossed. During the war, the cars were used as barricades, the tracks were damaged and the rails stolen. The timid resumption of activity between 1975 and 1990, at a time when conflicts were "subsiding", was never long. Today, most of the railways have been paved and have become roads. New projects had emerged in recent years, such as the establishment of a Tripoli-Homs line. The civil war in Syria has obviously put an end to this project and the Lebanese railways seem to be definitively buried.