Tickets, please. The last time that phrase was uttered in this train was... (Riyaq, Béqaa, Lebanon)
Tickets, please. The last time that phrase was uttered in this train was probably shortly before I was born (or the last Palaeolithic, whichever is more recent) but then again, the last time a train pulled into Riyaq was probably sometime back in the early ‘90s, when then Prime Minister, Rafic al-Hariri was briefly entertaining the idea of bringing Lebanon’s decades defunct railway system back to life, at least for moving freight. This little engine has been abandoned for much, much longer, to judge by the thickness of the rust on its chassis, and seems to have last been used one winter, judging by the snowplough attached to its front. Now, it finds itself lost not in drifts of snow, but in an indoor forest of banyan-esque trees, which clearly have no trouble growing in, around and even through the trains themselves. Walking around the depot reminded me a little of those photos you see of the ruins in Angkor, where the roots and trunks of assorted tropical trees seem to flow down and over stone statues and temples, like water. I’m not sure what kind of trees these are - you find them all over the country, usually in abandoned lots and ruined houses - but they grow like weeds, so their relative size gives no real indication of just how long. Our watchful guardian – for the vast, but decaying depot is still officially ‘active’ (in as much as it still has ‘employees’) – told us that until about ten years ago, they used to keep the tracks and the train sheds clean but they’re no longer tasked with that. Failing a full-on resurrection, the best possible outcome for this little chuffer, one of dozens on site, would be for Riyaq to be turned into a museum. Like a freight service, there were plans for that too but like the passengers that once plied this line, those too have gone up in smoke.
by wsinghbartlett / Instagram