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Good Morning! I did not catch much sleep last night. I must have been waiting for the announced thunderstorm to come, which did not show up. Now I feel beat, so I need my morning coffee in an IV bag, Zoe! No breakfast yet, it´s too early for that. I´ll come back later for that! Ken - the little village of Flåm located at the Sognefjord used to be a tiny farming community with people having a hard time to make a living. They had to be self-sustaining, as there was no other connection to the outside world than by boat. That changed in the late 1800´s, when tourism discovered the beauty of Norway´s fjords. Each year, the village sees half a million tourists and the village folks know how to milk them! Myrdal at the other end is just a station in the middle of nowhere, where people can change trains for Oslo or Bergen. Only 4 more days until Ulrich´s Train Movie Theatre closes until further notice, so better hurry up and reserve a seat! Today´s feature takes us into a world most like lost forever. Scheherazade´s Tales - The Lost Railway The Hedjaz Railway  was a narrow gauge railway (1,050 mm/3 ft 5 11&frasl;32 in gauge) that ran from Damascus to Medina, through the Hedjaz region of Saudi Arabia, with a branch line to Haifa on the Mediterranean Sea. It was a part of the Ottoman railway network and was built to extend the line from the Haydarpaşa Terminal in Kadikoy beyond Damascus to the holy city of Mecca. It got no further than Medina, 400 kilometres (250 mi) short of Mecca, due to the interruption of the construction works caused by the outbreak of World War I. Damascus to Medina is 1,300 kilometres (810 mi). The main purpose of the railway was to establish a connection between Constantinople, the capital of the Ottoman Empire and the seat of the Islamic Caliphate, and Hedjaz in Arabia, the site of the holiest shrines of Islam and the holy city of Mecca, the destination of the Hajj annual pilgrimage. Another important reason was to improve the economic and political integration of the distant Arabian provinces into the Ottoman state, and to facilitate the transportation of military forces. The railway had no debt when completed. A railway had been suggested in 1864 to relieve the suffering of the hajis on their 40-day journey through the wilderness of Midian, the Nafud, and the Hedjaz Mountains. About 20% of them commonly died from starvation, thirst and diseases. The railway was basically a sub project of the Berlin-Bagdad Railway and started in 1900 at the behest of the Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid II and was built by the German Civil Engineer Heinrich August Meißner and financed by the Deutsche Bank and strongly supported by the German Empire. A public subscription was opened throughout the Islamic world to fund construction. However in 1912 the Ottoman Empire was owing the Deutsche Bank 29 million Turkey Pounds. The railway was to be a waqf, an inalienable religious endowment or charitable trust.Before the construction, German military adviser in Constantinople Auler Pasha estimated that the transportation of soldiers from Constantinople to Mecca would be reduced to 120 hours. The Berlin to Baghdad Railway was built in the same time. The railways were interrelated and aimed to strengthen the authority of the Empire over Arab provinces. Another intention was to protect Hejaz and other Arab provinces from British invasion. Other than the Haydarpasa-Izmit line, the Hejaz Railway was the only railway the Empire built itself in its existence. Due to its reliance on charitable donation to cover costs, and mounting pressure from competing Britain and France, construction stalled, ending up taking significantly longer to finish than anticipated.  Following WW I, the line fell more or less dormant, as traffic along the entire line was never restored. Parts came into operation, but fell again victim to the various wars in this turmoil stricken region. <iframe src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/rDe9AoZicoI" width="425" height="350"></iframe> Enjoy!
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