AL-MONITOR (4/12/2019)
The century-old Hijaz Railway crosses Amman from north to south. Children play close by, jumping over the track that once connected Jordan’s capital to Syria, Palestine and Saudi Arabia. It’s been almost a decade since the last train to Syria departed from Amman’s train station.
With the railway largely abandoned, families stroll along the line built under Abdulhamid II, the Ottoman sultan death-bent on preventing the empire from disintegration.
Teenage boys play football using the track to score goals. Amman’s main public park is 45 minutes away by car.
Jordanian architect Hanna Salameh has an ambitious plan to restore the railway and thereby give his city much needed green space. The Hijaz Railway Park, his latest project, was announced in a viral video released earlier this year.
“Parks are a necessity, not a luxury,” Salameh, who is ranked among the Middle East’s most influential architects, told Al-Monitor. His plan is to build a decentralized public park by planting trees along the railway that crosses Amman and to have an electric tram running on the track. (…)
Read more: https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2019/12/jordan-hejaz-railway-to-become-a-park.html#ixzz67De7z0EU