the Hejaz Railway in Palestine
Tal al-Shammam Station
This is a photographic journey, taken in 2020 to explore the Hejaz Railway line in Palestine – or what remains of it. An expedition to the original main stations, built along the line by the Ottomans over a century ago, follows its path from Haifa to Al-Hamma, reveling in the country’s myriad beauty from the Mediterranean coast to the Yarmouk River. The trip also traced the railway’s southern branch (now in the West Bank), extended to Nablus and Tulkarem as part of the Ottoman war-effort. This visual trek highlights juxtapositions of images of past and present and, more strikingly, the toll that time has taken on Palestinians’ ability to preserve their heritage or determine their fate. The last shot on this journey – showing Tulkarem Station at the line’s end, stranded on the other side of the Wall – is an allegory, so to speak, of the conditions of what remains of a once glorious past.
Old photo: The seven-arched bridge with a masonry facade [titles] on the Hamidian Hejaz railway from the constructions at the 494th kilometer towards Ma’an. [Hejaz Railway, 1905/06 Photo album, Ömer M. Koç Collection]
New photo: The basalt bridge in Wadi al-Eshesh on the western slope of the Jordan Valley.
Old photo: The bridge built on the descending waterfall on the Haifa branch of the great exalted line from the structures and works at the 133rd kilometer near Zizon village in Yarmuk valley. [Hejaz Railway, 1905/06 Photo album, Ömer M. Koç Collection]
New photo: The third Yarmouk bridge
Old photo: The form of the three-arched hundred-and-ten iron bridge on the Haifa branch of the exalted line at the 94th kilometer from Haifa. [Hejaz Railway, 1905/06 Photo album, Ömer M. Koç Collection]
New photo: The view over Wadi al-Bireh
Old photo: The forty-eight-meter-long six-arched bridge on with a masonry facade across the Yarmuk river and on the Haifa branch of the great exalted line from the structures and works at the 145th kilometer. [Hejaz Railway, 1905/06 Photo album, Ömer M. Koç Collection]
New photo: The five-arched bridge that crosses Wadi al-Bireh
Old photo: The three-hundred-meter-long and mostly thirty-meter-high white flint stone large rock split, the 108th section opened and leveled by the responsible, on the Haifa branch of the great exalted line from the structures and works at the 142nd kilometer. [Hejaz Railway, 1905/06 Photo album, Ömer M. Koç Collection]
New photo: Tunnel at Rasheen, seen from the north
Old photo: The form of the three-arched hundred-and-ten iron bridge on the Haifa branch of the exalted line at the 94th kilometer from Haifa. [Hejaz Railway, 1905/06 Photo album, Ömer M. Koç Collection]
New photo: The second Yarmouk bridge
Old photo: The view of the descending waterfall on the path of the Haifa branch of the great exalted line in front of the village of Tel al-Shahab in the Yarmuk valley. [Hejaz Railway, 1905/06 Photo album, Ömer M. Koç Collection]
New photo: The Yarmouk river wadi
Old photo: The forty-eight-meter-long six-arched bridge on with a masonry facade across the Yarmuk river and on the Haifa branch of the great exalted line from the structures and works at the 145th kilometer. [Hejaz Railway, 1905/06 Photo album, Ömer M. Koç Collection]
New photo: The railway path over the three-arched basalt bridge in Wadi al-Eshesh
Old photo: The thirty-eight-meter-long three-arched bridge with a masonry facade on the Haifa branch of the great exalted line from the structures and works at the 132nd kilometer. [Hejaz Railway, 1905/06 Photo album, Ömer M. Koç Collection]
New photo: view of the southern tip of the Israeli occupied Golan Heights
Old photo: The general view of other structures in the Ma’an station [titles] on the Hamidian Hejaz railway. [Hejaz Railway, 1905/06 Photo album, Ömer M. Koç Collection]
New photo: view of the new rail line near Shatta Station.
Old photo: The construction of the masonry section of the hundred-and-ten-meter-long three-arched iron bridge on the Haifa branch of the great exalted line from the structures and works at the 101st kilometer. [Hejaz Railway, 1905/06 Photo album, Ömer M. Koç Collection]
New photo: Wadi al-Bireh
Old photo: The side view of the sixty-two-meter-long bridge with a masonry façade on the Haifa branch of the exalted line at the 121st kilometer from Haifa.[Hejaz Railway, 1905/06 Photo album, Ömer M. Koç Collection]
New photo: The Jalameh bridge
Old photo: The fifty-meter-long Tel al-Shahab iron bridge established and built on the Haifa branch of the great exalted line from the structures and works at the 145th kilometer. [Hejaz Railway, 1905/06 Photo album, Ömer M. Koç Collection]
New photo: The Israeli-Jordanian buffer zone gate at al-Hamma.
Old photo: The seven-arched bridge with a masonry facade [titles] on the Hamidian Hejaz railway from the constructions at the 494th kilometer towards Ma’an. [Hejaz Railway, 1905/06 Photo album, Ömer M. Koç Collection]
New photo: Jisr al-Majama’, the five-arched basalt bridge in the buffer zone along the border between Israel and Jordan.
Old photo: Part of the structures at the station’s square of the Ma’an station [title] on the Hamidian Hejaz railway. [Hejaz Railway, 1905/06 Photo album, Ömer M. Koç Collection]
New photo: what remains of the Tulkarem Station.