Tripoli's railway returns after 50 years

The last train out of Tripoli left in 1975. For half a century, the railway of Tripoli's El-Mina station has sat in silence, a relic of a time when Lebanon was a crossroads of the Middle East. Now, after decades of failed promises and shelved studies, the dream of reviving the Tripoli-Al-Aboudieh railway line is stirring once more, and this time there is a tender document to prove it.

Tripoli's railway history stretches back to 1911, when a line first connected the northern Lebanese port city to Homs in Syria. The station at El-Mina became a gateway between the Levant's coast and its interior, part of a broader network that once linked Beirut to Damascus, Haifa, and beyond. By the mid-20th century, Lebanon's rail network spanned over 400 kilometers, carrying passengers and freight across a country that punched above its weight as a regional commercial hub.

It all came to an abrupt halt in 1975. When Lebanon's civil war erupted, trains stopped running and never came back. Stations were turned into barracks, tracks were looted for scrap, and infrastructure that had taken decades to build was left to decay. The Tripoli station, with its war-scarred walls and silent German locomotives dating back to the 1890s, became a monument to what Lebanon had lost.

Decades of promises and disappointment

The idea of revival never fully died. In 2002, bilateral agreements with Syria and Jordan envisioned reconnecting Lebanon's railway to neighboring networks. Work briefly commenced on rebuilding portions of the Tripoli-Al-Aboudieh corridor. In 2017, China, eyeing Tripoli as a gateway to post-war Syrian reconstruction, offered to rebuild the Tripoli-Homs rail line, but negotiations collapsed over financing terms. Successive Lebanese governments, paralyzed by political gridlock and then devastated by the 2019 financial collapse, left the railway file gathering dust.

Advocacy groups refused to give up. Carlos Naffa and his organisation "Train Train" kept pushing, developing comprehensive transport plans and lobbying each new government. Railway enthusiasts, photographers, and engineers documented the decaying network, keeping its memory alive in the public consciousness. But ambition and action remained stubbornly disconnected.

A shift in the conversation

Lebanon's Minister of Public Works recently signed the tender documents for the redesign and modernization of the Tripoli-Al-Aboudieh railway line, marking one of the most concrete steps toward reviving the country's long-dormant rail sector. The signing ceremony was held at the Port of Tripoli, where railway tracks installed in 2004 have remained unused for more than two decades. The event brought together transport officials, port authorities, and representatives of the Tripoli Chamber of Commerce, underscoring the project's economic and strategic significance.

The proposed railway would extend approximately 35 kilometers across Lebanese territory, linking the Port of Tripoli with the Al-Aboudieh border crossing via Abdeh and Tal Abbas in Akkar. An additional six kilometers would connect the line to Syria's railway network. At its core, the project is designed to establish an efficient freight corridor capable of transporting goods and containers between the port and regional markets, while passenger services remain a potential future development.

Under the current timeline, a consulting firm will be appointed to conduct a comprehensive feasibility study and prepare detailed engineering designs. The firm will have six months to deliver the technical assessments and tender documents required for the project's implementation, providing the first clear roadmap toward translating the railway's revival from proposal into reality.

The regional prize

What makes this project compelling is its potential reach. If connected to Syria's rail network at Al-Aboudieh, the line could eventually extend toward Turkey, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia, transforming Tripoli's port from a regional backwater into a major logistics hub. Lebanon signed onto the ESCWA economic corridor framework back in 2003; this railway could finally give that commitment physical form.

Officials are direct about the stakes. "The line has no value unless it connects to Syria," the head of Lebanon's Railway and Public Transport Authority has noted. The project's ambitions are inseparable from the broader normalization of Lebanese-Syrian relations and the stability of the post-war Syrian state.

Hope turning into reality

The challenges are formidable. Funding remains uncertain, decades of encroachments along the railway corridor will require legal and physical remediation, and the success of the project ultimately depends on Syria’s ability to restore and support its side of the network.

Yet the reopening of the Tripoli railway represents the beginning of a long-term vision rather than its final destination. For more than fifty years, the trains at El-Mina station have stood still, serving as reminders of a once-connected region and a missed economic opportunity. Reviving the line would not simply restore a piece of infrastructure; it would reconnect Lebanon to regional markets, strengthen Tripoli’s strategic role as a gateway to the Levant, and signal a renewed commitment to investment, mobility, and economic growth. Whether that vision becomes reality will depend on the political will, regional cooperation, and sustained investment needed to move the project from aspiration to operation.