A train graveyard buried deep in the Bekaa Valley? Natasha Dirany investigates.

‘Keep your voice down,’ I’m instructed. ‘The trains are sleeping – we must respect their rest.’ While it’s likely my guide was protecting me from wild dogs roaming the area, he was not wrong; hidden in the Bekaa Valley lies Lebanon’s own train cemetery, playing hostess to important visitors.

At one time the town of Rayak – 20 kilometres south of Baalbeck – was a focus of locomotive history. In August 1895 crowds flocked to watch the completion of the Middle East’s first rail network, as the Rayak-bound train chugged across ‘Greater Syria’ from the port of Beirut. Built during the reign of the Ottoman Empire, the railway soon became an essential means of trade and transportation. By 1912 it was a vital cog in an intercontinental rail system that spread throughout Europe and Asia and, by the 1940s, linked Europe and Africa.

Now? Since the station’s closure in 1976 (after passing through the hands of the Ottomans, French and Syrians), the site has remained abandoned. Sneak behind the local family restaurant Chez Raymond (well worth its own separate visit for their cracking mezze), and you feel as if you have boarded an industrial Marie Celeste; trains, cars and machinery of a bygone era remain suspended in time. It’s not just a train station but a train factory – a crumbling network of 70-odd buildings, including a ‘locomotive garage’, ticket office and a hotel. Half-completed trains are still propped up on their stilts, wild flowers sprouting through their rusting parts as they fall into gentle ruin.

It’s easy to be bowled over by the romanticism of it all. But really a visit should serve as a stark wake-up call to the fact of Lebanon’s moving backwards, not forwards. This August, it will be 115 years since the inauguration of Rayak Railway station, making Lebanon’s current transportation crisis all the more laughable.

Thanks to NGO Train/Train, though, there’s cause for optimism. The organisation – comprised of passionate locals and media professionals – are pushing into a living museum. ‘In Rayak you can find examples of technology unfound elsewhere in the world’, said a representative of the organisation. ‘It’s the community’s prerogative to preserve and promote these historical treasures.’ The first step is to secure the area, to prevent any further dilapidation and to encourage local and international visitors. A feature-length documentary is also in the works, detailing the factory’s history, but Train/Train’s plans have an even larger scope – restoring the train line itself.

‘The roads in Lebanon were made at a time when the train was still functioning. That’s why our road connections don’t work properly – it’s like ripping the heart out of a body’. And it’s a body that’s flatlining; public transport is almost non-existent, traffic is worse than ever. It’s explained to me how a rumoured opening of a Haifa-Jordan train route will soon leave the Beirut port redundant, taking a healthy chunk of our much-needed economic stability with it. The restoration of Rayak Railway Station is just the starting point: local authorities are backing the plan to open another border checkpoint, allowing the movement of freights into Syria, Europe and Asia. If the project succeeds, Lebanon’s other abandoned stations and rails will be reinstated too.

An ambitious ‘if’, maybe, but Train/Train are determined to get there – one track at a time.

Train/Train needs you! To volunteer contact 03 212885. For more information on the project join the Facebook group Train/Train Lebanon or visit www.rayakrailway.org