Baghdad to Basra on a sleeper train

[Exvalley]

Thanks to the YouTube algorithm, this very interesting video came up in my feed.

 

[neroden]

I think those trains are newer than anything Amtrak is running except the Viewliner IIs.

 

[Seaboard92]

I would totally ride it but I'm more adventurous than most people I know.

 

[daybeers]

I would totally ride it but I'm more adventurous than most people I know.

This trip is now on my list.

 

[Willbridge]

This is part of the Berlin to Baghdad Railway project which the Kaiser expected to outflank the Suez Canal as a route to India and the Orient. Baghdad was the publicity destination but Basra was the real objective. More recently when we attacked Iraq, the British took Basra and the rail line, perhaps out of old imperial habits.

Berlin–Baghdad railway - Wikipedia

 

[acelafan]

That was a really interesting video, thank you for posting. The train station in Baghdad looked quite beautiful.

 

[Seaboard92]

This trip is now on my list.

There is safety in numbers. We should go together after we meet up on Amtrak somewhere.

 

[daybeers]

There is safety in numbers. We should go together after we meet up on Amtrak somewhere.

Sounds good to me! Though I am not worried. And rail from the shortest distance flight from NYC to Europe/UK...Lisbon?

 

[JoshP]

Now that sleeper looks nicer than the roomettee/bedroom. Why? clear, clean and simple.

 

[Rasputin]

I wonder if they have printed timetables or timetables online.

 

[daybeers]

I wonder if they have printed timetables or timetables online.

https://www.seat61.com/Iraq.htm

 

[JoshP]

Damn, $34 for sleepers for 12 hour ride? Hell thats cheap! But I know, in Iraq, but man, $34. Wish that was on 66/67. It would be killer

 

[oregon pioneer]

Wow, I loved that video! Great vicarious travel experience!

 

[mcropod]

This is part of the Berlin to Baghdad Railway project which the Kaiser expected to outflank the Suez Canal as a route to India and the Orient. Baghdad was the publicity destination but Basra was the real objective. More recently when we attacked Iraq, the British took Basra and the rail line, perhaps out of old imperial habits.

Berlin–Baghdad railway - Wikipedia

Indeed. And Basra was a key place for the British Army in the second great unpleasantness as well. My old man casually dropped into a conversation with me a couple of years before he died that he'd been based there during his service in Signals. As well as a few other places in the Middle East in services of the rapidly declining Empire.

That's a generation which more than met its obligations.

 

[jis]

My Grand Uncle (Dad’s Uncle on his Father’s side) is buried in the Allied Cemetery in Basra. He was a Medic attached to an Indian Division operating in Mesopotamia during the First World War. A cousin of mine has visited his tomb so it is there and the cemetery was apparently left untouched through the years including the recent American led invasion.

Incidentally, not to be outdone, the Brits (well actually the Aussies, South Africans and and New Zealanders during various stages of construction) had managed to build a rail connection all the way to Cairo started during the first world war and completed during the second world war, so for a little while after the war it was possible to ride a train from London to Cairo, modulo a ferry crossing or two. It was blown up in the Palestine Territories by the Haganah during the Israeli independence movement after the war. Remnants of its right of way including a few tunnels can be visited today at Rosh Hanikra on the border between Lebanon and Israel. I visited it during one of my several visits to Israel on work. Interestingly, the crossing point where it crossed from Palestine into Sinai is to this day a principal crossing point (Rafa Crossing) between Gaza Strip and Sinai.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestine_Railways
BTW, the original Jaffa station is now an open air mall with several very nice restaurants.

 

[UserNameRequired]

Father-in laws uncle buried in Amara, Iraq. Royal Engineers Regiment 56194. Amara is about halfway between Basra and Baghdad along the Tigris.

 

[Willbridge]

I just checked in the 1971 Ausland Kursbuch and the Deutsche Bundesbahn showed timetables all the way to Basra. The Taurus Express -- 2nd and 3rd class only -- carried a sleeper and a diner. It ran 3x weekly between Ankara and Gaziantep, then 2x weekly to Baghdad. The separate overnight Basra train ran daily, carried a diner and sleeper and all three classes. It was four nights between Ankara and Basra.

 

[jis]

Thanks to the YouTube algorithm, this very interesting video came up in my feed.

BTW. Those train sets were acquired from China around 2014.

https://www.railwaygazette.com/middle-east/new-iraqi-inter-city-train-rolled-out/39223.article