Rail transport in Jordan


Rail transport in Jordan refers to the two main railways in Jordan both of who are direct descendants of the 1908 Ottoman Hejaz railway in Transjordan. The main rail is the Hejaz Jordan Railway which operates passenger trains. The second rail is the Aqaba Railway, which closed in 2018. Aqaba Railway was a freight train that transported phosphate to the port of Aqaba until 2018. Jordan has a total of 507 km of narrow gauge railways as of 2008.
The Hejaz Jordan Railway is the only passenger railway currently operating in Jordan, connecting Jiza, Amman, Zarqa and Mafraq. Previously it used to connect to Damascus until the Syrian Civil War caused the closure of the Jordanian-Syrian train link. The Jordanian part is narrow gauge; the rest of the Syrian network uses.

Hejaz Jordan Railway

[file:Label on locomotive 52 of Hejaz Jordan Railway.jpg|thumb|Label on a locomotive of Hejaz Jordan Railway.]
The Hejaz Jordan Railway is one of the two successor railways to the 1908 Ottoman Hejaz Railway in Jordan. When the Ottoman Empire collapsed in 1920, the Hejaz Railway, formerly under Ottoman control, was divided into 2 railways: the Aqaba Railway and the Hejaz Jordan Railway. When Jordan became independent in 1946, the HJR served as the main railway of Jordan for passengers. In 1975 the HJR built a line branch line from Ma'an to Aqaba on the Red Sea. The line was later sold to the Aqaba Railway Corporation in 1979.
Since the Syrian Civil War the Hejaz Jordan Railway connection between Jordan and the Damascus terminal in Syria has been suspended. In September 2025, Turkey, Syria and Jordan agreed on a draft memorandum to restore the track built by the historic Hejaz Railway between the three countries.

Stations

List of stations.

Locomotives

The following may not be a complete list.

Steam

Steam locomotives include:
Running numberWheel arrangementBuilder and works numberDate built
232-8-2Robert Stephenson & Hawthorns, 74331951
512-8-2Arnold Jung, 120811955
61 2-6-2THaine St Pierre, Belgium, 21471955
712-8-2Haine St Pierre, Belgium, 21441955
824-6-2Nippon Sharyo, 16101953/1959

Diesel

Diesel locomotives include:
QuantityWheel arrangementBuilder and typeDate built
3A1A-A1AGE U10B1976

Museum

There is a museum at Amman station. In 2003, it contained more than 250 exhibits, including murals depicting the development of the railway.

Aqaba Railway

The Aqaba Railway was a freight railway that was managed by the Aqaba Railway Corporation and operated in southern Jordan. The railway was formed in 1979 to transport phosphate to the port in Aqaba. It partly used the tracks of the 1908 Ottoman Hejaz Railway. Operations of the railway were suspended in 2018 when phosphate transport was transferred to a new terminal which is not rail connected. A successor line to transport phosphate from Al Shidiya and Ghor es-Safi to the new terminal in Port of Aqaba is planned through an agreement between Jordan's Ministry for Transport and Etihad Rail.

History

In 1908 the Ottoman Empire built the Hejaz Railway, that ran from Damascus to Medina. After World War I and the fall of the Ottoman Empire, the railway never operated south of Ma'an. The Hejaz Jordan Railway operated the tracks of the Hejaz railway in Jordan. In 1975 the railway built a branch from Ma'an to Aqaba, a port city on the Gulf of Aqaba. In 1979 the Aqaba Railway Corporation was incorporated and took over the route from Abiad to Aqaba. The purpose of the ARC was to transport phosphates from mines near Abiad and Ma'an to the port in Aqaba. The ARC operated only freight trains powered by GE U17C diesel locomotives.

History

Jordan had two connected but non-contiguously operated sections of the 1908 Ottoman Hejaz Railway that still exist:
In the 2000s, Jordanian government began acquiring land for new rail routes. Following a study by BNP Paribas, three routes were planned, which were expected to be tendered later in 2010. The three routes were:
  1. From the Syrian border, via Zarqa, to the Saudi border; replacing part of the Hejaz Railway;
  2. Connecting the first line to Aqaba, and from Mafraq to Irbid, replacing another part of the Hejaz railway;
  3. A link to the Iraqi border.
However, in late 2010, the government announced an economic relief package and following the 2011 Jordanian protests it was decided to reduce the expected three-year capital investment plan in the national railway network by 72 percent, partly to fund the relief package.
In August 2011, the Jordanian government approved the construction of the railway from Aqaba to the Iraqi border. Iraq started the construction of the line from the border to their current railhead at Ramadi.
Jordan planned for a Aqaba-Ma'an railway modernization with the Saudi Jordanian Investment Fund. In 2019 they signed a memorandum of understanding with the Aqaba Special Economic Zone Authority to invest 500 million JD to redevelop the Aqaba-Ma'an railway alongside building a dry port in Ma'an. It plans to upgrade the gauge from 1050mm as built in 1975 to 1435mm Standard gauge.