The Hejaz Railway Show .. Visual certificate of the greatest transport projects of its time

Hussein Nashwan - Amman

More than a century after the completion of the Hejaz railway project, known as the "Timur Taley", the Turkish Cultural Center, in cooperation with the Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency (TIKA) and the Turkish Language Center "Younis Amara" Creation.

The exhibition included 150 documents and 100 photographs dating back to the early 20th century, and traces the stages of construction of the railway, which starts from Istanbul and ends in the Hijaz, and the two most important stations in Jordan are Amman and Ma'an.

These images represent testimony to one of the great projects of its time, and represent a strategic vision of the unity of the Ottoman Empire, which was spread between Asia, Africa and Europe and followed by about forty countries.

8 years to build the railway
The railway, which has been in operation for about eight years, stretches over 1,500 kilometers and crosses four countries: Turkey, Syria, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, with branches to Iraq and Palestine, including 69 passenger stations and 2,600 bridges, including 10 in Amman.

"The cost of the project at that time amounted to about five million Turkish lira, which is equivalent to 18 percent of the budget of the Ottoman Empire. It was one of the largest transport projects at that time, and the transfer of 1,908 million pilgrims," ​​said Genghis Roglu, the director of the cultural center. , Including many poor people who were transferred free of charge. "

Oglu pointed out that the project is important in transporting goods and facilitating movement, specifically Hajj, which took the pilgrim from Damascus forty days, while taking the train about 72 hours, as well as the importance of this means in the military operations and social aspects that sought Sultan Abdul Hamid through To strengthen the territorial integrity of the empire and to revive the economy and trade among its mandates.

The project was based on donations
The railway project was funded by donations from a number of Muslim countries at the time, some of them not under the Ottoman Empire, including Morocco, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Mozambique, Stan Stone (Hungary), Bukhara (Uzbekistan), Russia, India, said Roglu, a history expert who worked in the Ottoman archives. Cyprus and China, pointing out that everyone who donated to the project, no matter how small, was awarded a medal.

He said that Sultan Abdul Hamid II had a hobby and a desire to document everything related to the Turkish state, including the railway project, which was a dream for him, and represented a documentary certificate of the project since its early stages as evidenced by documents and orders and correspondence and transactions related to the stages of the project and its employees Engineers and costs.

The project was destroyed in World War I and many of its stations were damaged due to neglect. The Turkish government, in cooperation with TIKA, rehabilitated the Amman line and built a museum of documents related to the project.

A museum of life in the early 20th century
The museum, which opens at the end of this year in the Marka area of ​​Amman, includes vehicles, engines, pieces of railways, cards, chairs, utensils, coins and used weapons. It also includes photographs and documents related to the project from its inception in 1898 to 1908 and life at the turn of the century.

The exhibition, which was held at Darat al-Funun, was designed to reflect the historical atmosphere of the idea of ​​building and architecture, and it will be transported in September to the city of Aqaba, south of Jordan, 340 km, and in November To Irbid north of the country.