[rendall]

This article made me think about how the presence of trains indicate peace. Trains are so vulnerable to attack. Their existence depends on everyone with access to the tracks to trust and agree with their purpose. I suspect if we're mourning these trains, we also mourn the loss of peace and stability in the region.

As an aside, TIL that there are actually two Tripolis, one in Libya and the other in Lebanon.

I have heard references to an ancient, historical Tripoli for years, even in the lyrics of Onward, Christian Soldier. I only knew about the Libyan city and thought the article was mistaken when it referred to "Tripoli, Beirut and Haifa" together as Levantine ports, but "The last train left Tripoli for Beirut at the start of Lebanon’s civil war in 1975" tipped me off that my geography was off, since a train from Libya to Lebanon would not have been possible after Israel closed her borders.

[ajuc]

> This article made me think about how the presence of trains indicate peace. Trains are so vulnerable to attack. Their existence depends on everyone with access to the tracks to trust and agree with their purpose. I suspect if we're mourning these trains, we also mourn the loss of peace and stability in the region.

Trains can also indicate war :) They are crucial for logistics, and were especially so before WW2. My country uses European gauge rails despite starting with Russian gauge rails because during WW1 Germany occupied big parts of it and switched the gauge to incorporate it in their WW1 supply train.

BTW you could deduce if some country wanted to invade the other or defend itself by looking at the rails and roads they invest in - if the lines go along the border they are more likely to defend, if the lines go perpendicular to the border - they are more likely to attack.

[hwillis]

For the curious, Russian gauge is/was 5 ft (1,524 mm) and standard gauge is 4 ft 8 1⁄2 in (1,435 mm). Soviets eventually redefined it to a round metric number (1,520 mm), but that's a very small difference. Track width varies by around a centimeter normally.

Russian and Soviet rail profile tend to be bigger (taller by maybe an inch) but that doesn't really impact the trains aside from transitioning from one to the other.

Interestingly, 3.5 in happens to be almost the ideal change. The bottom of a normal rail profile is a bit over 6 in wide, so the new spike hole is right between the two old holes. If the difference was any larger or smaller, the new spike wouldn't hold as well.

[agumonkey]

There was some massive article about Russian logistics in WW2. It was indeed a big factor in a war. Invading a country with incompatible rails was a problem.

[physicsguy]

I recently visited the National Railway Museum in York, and they had an exhibition about hospital trains in Northern France during WWI. The British government discussed plans for train carriages and trains with train companies before war had even been declared, with the first deliveries to the port of Southampton taking place within the first few weeks of war being declared.

[nine_k]

After the invention of heavy bomber aircraft by the end of WWI, railways became very vulnerable, and regular train traffic, to my mind, could only indicate peace time. It might be a preparation for a war, but not a war yet.

[nmridul]

The trains between India and Pakistan also runs regular during peacetime and gets suspended on first indication of conflict.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samjhauta_Express

[rolleiflex]

We had, in fact, three — we called the one in Libya Trablusgarp, Trablus of the West, and he one in Lebanon Trablusşam, Trablus of the Levant, and we call the only one that we have left in Anatolia, today's Turkey, Tirebolu. Just like hashes, given a large enough empire, name collisions are inevitable.

Edit: Corrected one of the names. Thanks @egiboy.

[egiboy]

It's not Trablusşark but rather Trablusşam, Tripoli of the Levant: https://tr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trablus%C5%9Fam

[rolleiflex]

Thank you! Corrected and credited.

[minhmeoke]

Yes, it seems like many of the railway lines featured in this article followed the path of the Taurus Express (basically an extension of the famous Simplon Orient Express) and were once promoted to European tourists as a safe, comfortable way to visit the sights of the Middle East. Many posters even featured Wagons-Lits (a sleeper and dining car provider analogous to the Pullman Company in the United States) which were the epitome of luxury travel at that time. The posters from that bygone era are quite impressive and enticing, hopefully peace will return to the region sometime soon:

https://retours.eu/en/51-taurus-express-iraq-egypt/

[fredley]

There are trains between Moscow / Beijing and Pyongyang, which is interesting I think.

[dustintrex]

There is also a train line between Seoul and Pyongyang, which unsurprisingly is virtually never used.

[dkarp]

I've ridden this trainline from Pyongyang to Beijing, although it was necessary to change trains after crossing the Yalu river and entering China at Dandong

[pirate787]

To the contrary, the strategic importance of trains specifically caused the Great War, and basically plunged Europe into 40 years of total war conflict.

https://medium.com/war-is-boring/massive-rail-networks-made-...

[brnt]

(FYI, there are many more Tripolis. It's not a very distinctive name.)

[inglor_cz]

It means "three cities" in Greek.

For example, the Polish "Trojmiasto" (Gdynia, Gdańsk, Sopot) could be translated as Tripolis into Greek.

Given how urban the ancient Mediterranean civilization was, such clusters could well develop.

[thakoppno]

> how the presence of trains indicate peace

A tangent, but I’ve often pondered about the economic and societal value of other inanimate objects; for instance, what the economic benefit of a barricade has always fascinated and perplexed me.

One one hand, a barricade prevents free the movement of services and goods. On the other hand, without them there would be less security, leading to less economic activity.

[dredmorbius]

This is similarly true of aircraft, which are immensely vulnerable to attack, and which typically don't overfly regions of conflict, as well as sea traffic, which is somewhat less vulnerable, but may be subject to closed access to specific routes, usually by way of canals. These differ from rail in that the routes are not typically quite so constrained. But as a general rule, commerce and trade rely on good relations.

In the case of aircraft, there have been a number of shoot-downs of civillian craft. Wikipedia lists at least 39 such incidents here, a starting number since 1980, contrasting to the argument that relations have become increasingly peaceable in recent decades.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_airliner_shootdown_inc...

One of the more notable instances of ships denied access to a shorter route was the case of the Russian navy's Baltic fleet in the Russo-Japanese war. After the Russian fleet After mistaking a British fishing fleet for Japanese torpedo boats in the North Sea, and sinking them in what is known as the Dogger Bank Incident, Britain denied Russia use of the Suez Canal (by some accounts). The Baltic fleet were forced to go the long way 'round, via the Cape of Good Hope and South Africa, and arrived in very poor condition (having dparted in not much better) and suffered a humilating defeat at the Battle of Tsushima which helped in part precipitate the failed 1905 Russian Revolution.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Tsushima

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogger_Bank_incident

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Japanese_War

The logistical task of moving a coal-fired naval fleet around the world was formidible, with the Baltic fleet requiring forty coaling stops. The round-the-world tour of the US's own Great White Fleet shortly after (1907--9) was in part a tour de force of US claims on fueling and service ports along the route. The emergence of oil and nuclear-powered vessels was transformative to naval power, the former beginning with the British fleet immediately prior to the First World War, the latter during and after the Cold War, though largely limited to aircraft carriers and submarines.

Arguably, whales are another case in which long-distance mobility is enabled by attractive prospects at widely-sepatarted locations (krill and other feeding grounds), and a lack of any credible predators or enemies. The very largest whales are an evolutionarily modern development, having grown from smaller species largely inhabiting coastal waters. The emergence of a capable predator (humans) very nearly proved fatal to all great whale species.

Another transportation mode which existed in the Middle East was the Trans-Arabian pipeline. As with railroads, pipelines rely on safe passage along a land route. Most critically, the TAP crossed the Golan Heights, which came under Israeli control during the 1967 Six Day War.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Arabian_Pipeline

And in the US, when highway construction was largely a local affair, wealthier cities and towns tended to ignore routes outside city limits, counties tended to ignore those extending beyond county lines, and states those which extended beyond their own boundaries. One of the benefits of a nationaly highway and interstate system (and there were national post roads and highways before the inauguration of the US Interstate Highway System in 1956) was in creating an overarching interest in a national transportation infrastructure, with commensurate planning and financing.

Even today, there are few boundary marks as evident as where one jurisdiction's highway work ends and another begins, particularly between wealthier and less-flush jurisdictions, be they towns, counties, or states. The demarcation is literally paved on the ground.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_Highway_System#Fede...

[yyyk]

>Another transportation mode which existed in the Middle East was the Trans-Arabian pipeline....

As wiki points out, TAP kept running until 1976. Technology changed with supertankers, so Saudi decided to stop haggling over fees and not use it. Same thing for ME rail routes - they all required investment, and most ME countries had different priorities.

[dredmorbius]

My understanding is that TAP's significance ended largely with the 1967 war, though I'm not especially familiar with it.

Its existence does explain much of the strategic significance of Beruit (the pipeline's Mediterranean terminus) however.

[yyyk]

>My understanding is that TAP's significance ended largely with the 1967 war, though I'm not especially familiar with it.

The TAP stopped most operations because Saudi discovered they can use supertankers through international waters and pay much less in pipeline fees. The 1967 war may have actually given TAP a few years more - it closed the Suez canal for awhile, so tankers had to go the long way around. Suez reopened in June 1975 and soon after the Saudis stopped using TAP.

>Its existence does explain much of the strategic significance of Beruit (the pipeline's Mediterranean terminus) however.

TAP's terminus was at Sidon. As for Beirut, it was strategic for a different reason: The British Empire developed Haifa as a big Med port, but Arab state could not use it after Israel was founded; Beirut was the alternative for Haifa they could use.

[dredmorbius]

Thanks.

[trhway]

not only peace. Given the investment and maintenance required, trains require some degree of social/economic connectedness between places it connects. For example, the fall of USSR resulted in many train routes disappearing, and in the recent years Russia/Ukraine transport connections naturally got hit.

[ogogmad]

Weren't their trains from Nazi occupied territories to concentration camps in occupied Poland?