gkr@trout.nosc.mil (Gregory K. Ramsey) (01/19/91)
From: gkr@trout.nosc.mil (Gregory K. Ramsey) While watching the coverage of operation Desert Storm on NBC last night, they showed a map of Baghdad highlighting various points (targets) of interest. One was the railway station. I admit my knowledge or railroads outside of the US is probably lacking, but I thought that there weren,t any railroads in that part of the world except for the one we built in WW2 across Iran. Does anybody know anything about this railroad? When it was built, where it goes, what is it called? Is it militarily significant? Was it attacked? Greg Please send Email to greg@anacapa.ncel.navy.mil not the address in the header.
msb@sq.com (Mark Brader) (01/22/91)
From: msb@sq.com (Mark Brader)
[Cc to sci.military in case nobody comes up with more current information.]
My world atlas (printed in 1979) shows a railway line from the head of
the Persian Gulf running through Iraq, Jordan, and Turkey to the
Mediterranean. It follows a fairly straight route from Basra through
Baghdad to Mosul and across the northeast corner of Jordan; then it
runs along the Turkish side of the Turkey-Jordan border for some
distance, and then turns south to a point near Halab, Jordan.
>From there, one branch goes south through Halab and divides to
reach Tartus on the coast and various points in Lebanon including
Tripoli and Beirut -- I think I've heard that most or all of the railway
in Lebanon has been destroyed, though.
The other branch from the junction near Halab goes north and west,
and connects to the Turkish railway network at Osmaniye and Adana
(from which latter point, for instance, Kayseri and Ankara are reached
by a reasonably direct route).
Another line from Baghdad runs to Kirkuk and Irbil, with a short branch
to Khanaqin on the Iranian border.
There may be other connections that the atlas makers didn't think
worth showing.
--
Mark Brader "What can be more palpably absurd than the prospect held out
utzoo!sq!msb of locomotives travelling twice as fast as stagecoaches?"
msb@sq.com -- The Quarterly Review (England), March 1825msb@sq.com (Mark Brader) (01/23/91)
From: msb@sq.com (Mark Brader) > > My world atlas (printed in 1979) shows a railway line from the head of > > the Persian Gulf running through Iraq, Jordan, and Turkey to the > > Mediterranean. ... > I don't have my atlas handy, but isn't that Syria and not Jordan? Arrgh. He's right, of course. I'm sorry about the misinformation, and chagrined at making such an error on the net. -- Mark Brader, SoftQuad Inc., Toronto, utzoo!sq!msb, msb@sq.com "I'm a little worried about the bug-eater," she said. "We're embedded in bugs, have you noticed?" -- Niven, "The Integral Trees"