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August 17, 2004
With 1.2m cars, why not revive the train system?
Green Line holds photo exhibition at Mar Mikhail railway station
Syria and Lebanon are now looking into using 2 rail tracks from the old system
By Hanna Wettig
BEIRUT: Once upon a time, there was a train running through Lebanon . Now, there are 1.2 million cars.
With the capital's streets clogged with traffic anytime during working hours, "it's not like we don't need a public transport system," says Firas Abi Ranam from the environmental organization Green Line.
According to a study done by the American University's civil and engineering department, the average speed of cars driving in Beirut will have slowed down to 5-7 kilometers an hour, if the current trend sustains.
Reviving the train system, which first opened in 1895 and shut down in 1975 with the onset of the civil war, would be a difficult thing to do, Abi Ranam says, but has the potential of being profitable for the government.
Thus, Green Line has started a campaign for sustainable transport with funds from the Heinrich-Boell-Foundation, which is aligned with the German Green Party. Since 2002, they have conducted research on the transport system, made a documentary featuring several old train stations and been a thorn in the side of the Transport Ministry.
Over the past week, Green Line has gone public with a photo exhibition at an almost forgotten place - the old train station of Mar Mikhail in Gemmayzeh. The station, which is usually closed to the public, will remain open to viewers until Wednesday.
Hidden by a sound barrier facing the highway and from passersby on Beirut River Street by a bus terminal, it's a vast green oasis. A French style train station, the kind many may only know from old movies, still serves as an office building for the OCFTC, the state-owned train and public transport company, which runs the bus terminal and owns the old rail premises.
Behind the train station starts no man's land, with tall grass growing between old wagons rusting away and even an old steam locomotive.
As part of the exhibition, photos and old books document the train system's history in some of the wagons. In the old maintenance hall, Green Line has put up pictures of a recent photo competition about alternative ways of transport - people biking and walking. The former water tower is now a storage space for drinks served at a cafe under a huge tree. Documentaries and slide shows are also being displayed. The most interesting aspect is the lever car - Green Line volunteers take visitors on a short and fast ride down the track leading into a dark green wilderness.
A pile of shoes in one of the wagons hints to the more gruesome past of the venue.
"The wagons and buildings served as interrogation and torture chambers during the civil war. (We suppose) the shoes are from people who died here," Abi Ranam says.
Many people in the neighborhood, therefore, still fear the grounds - the guards at the bus terminal tell each other ghost stories. Abi Ranam heard many of them when he asked them if they could have an eye on Green Line's equipment. "(The guards) said, you give me $1 million and I still wouldn't go near the place," he recounts. "They actually claim they see things here. One told me of a white woman who floats above the grounds. Another one sees a monster."
The main aim of the project is to raise awareness about public transport.
"We are planning how to keep the place alive, so people don't forget that there was a train," Abi Ranam says.
As several people jumped on board the project, using this unheard of venue for other cultural events during the week-long exhibition, this goal has surely been achieved. A dance performance organized by the Beirut Street Festival drew many to the train station on Thursday. Crowds danced the night away at the train station during a rave featuring DJs and rappers from Berlin , London and Beirut on Saturday.
Yet, many of the youngsters had no clue what the project was trying to convey and as dilapidated as the halls seem, no one would picture that reviving the train system could actually be possible.
However, some of the country's remaining stations have recently been used. A 50-meter long track from Sin al-Fil to Enbete still serves for transporting goods. In 1993, the strip from Tripoli 's seaport to Enbete in the larger Beirut area was used to transport cement. But even though the OCFTC made up for its deficit in the eight months the train operated, the strip was closed down.
"It costs $4.50 to transport a ton of cement by train, transporting it by diesel truck it costs $12.50," Abi Ranam says.
Two possible reasons stand behind the government's decision to spend almost three times more than they have to.
"The diesel trucks are owned by influential people," Abi Ranam hints. "The highest tax is that on fuel. So there is no political will to invest into a public transport system."
The existing public transport system has been continuously dismantled. OCFTC operates blue and white public buses running on routes in the greater Beirut area. However, a private bus company, Sawaz and Tout, also operates its own red and white busses on these routes.
"In 1996 the government bought 125 busses, while Sawaz and Tout started with 95 busses. Now only 70 of the government owned busses function, while there are 205 red and white busses operating in Beirut ," Abi Ranam says. "Thus, they were able to raise the bus fees to LL750 recently, because they can beat the government buses."
One of the reasons for this is because OCFTC does not handle its own finances and must receive government approval for expenditures.
"They have to wait months for (Finance Minister Fouad) Siniora to approve funds," Abi Ranam says.
Sawaz and Tout doesn't have to overcome such red tape, yet at the same time, can operate its terminal on a 15,000 square meter piece of land in Horsh Tabet, paying the government a lowly LL1,000 in rent, according to Abi Ranam.
It has taken the Transport Ministry six years to develop a strategy paper for a public transport system, Abi Ranam complains. Now, that the paper is finished, it's far from what he would have wished for.
"It's a joke," he says. "The word environment does not appear once in the 120-page paper. Basically, they are saying we have to wait until everything is privatized."
However, he is convinced that the government could make a profit by making use of the old rail system. "The OCFTC is the richest government company with all the land it owns."
Now, Syria and Lebanon are looking into using two tracks from the old system - the track from Riyaq in the Bekaa to Aleppo and a track from Tripoli to Aleppo .
"It was initiated by Syria ," Abi Ranam says, adding that the government certainly acts, when it is pushed by Damascus .
Despite all this, he still holds out hope for the public transport sector.
"The strategy paper is now with (Deputy Premier) Issam Fares. He is serious with it," says Abi Ranam. "We would like to do another project under his patronage."
The exhibition continues at Mar Mikhail station till August 18 from 7.30-11.30pm. The station is located behind the bus terminal, about 200 meters after the Electricite du Liban.