History
The Kingdom of Italy built in Libya nearly 400 km of railways with 950 mm gauge. The last line the Italians started to create was the Tripoli-Benghazi in summer 1941, but their defeat in World War II stopped it at the beginning.
A 950 mm (3 ft 1 3⁄8 in) gauge network centred on Tripoli was opened from 17 March 1912 as part of the Italian occupation campaign. This extended from Tripoli 120 km west to Zuwara, 100 km south to Gharyan and 10 km east to Tajura.
A 750 mm (2 ft 5 1⁄2 in) (later 950 mm) gauge railway was built east from Benghazi; the main route was 110 km long to Marj and was opened in stages between 1911 and 1927. Benghazi also had a 56 km branch to Suluq opened in 1926.
Military extensions of some 40 km were made from Marj towards Derna in World War II. This was the final line to close, at the end of 1965.
The standard gauge Western Desert Extension was built from a junction 10 km east of Matruh Egypt to Tobruk during WW2 to assist in the Allied defence of the area. In 1942 this 350 km route was completed as part of Allied advance across North Africa. The 125 km Libyan section west of Sollum was removed after closure from 20 December 1946, though the Egyptian Railways Sollum branch still sees occasional freight.
Read more about this topic: Railway Stations In Libya
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“We are told that men protect us; that they are generous, even chivalric in their protection. Gentlemen, if your protectors were women, and they took all your property and your children, and paid you half as much for your work, though as well or better done than your own, would you think much of the chivalry which permitted you to sit in street-cars and picked up your pocket- handkerchief?”
—Mary B. Clay, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, ch. 3, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)
“What is most interesting and valuable in it, however, is not the materials for the history of Pontiac, or Braddock, or the Northwest, which it furnishes; not the annals of the country, but the natural facts, or perennials, which are ever without date. When out of history the truth shall be extracted, it will have shed its dates like withered leaves.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“I believe my ardour for invention springs from his loins. I can’t say that the brassiere will ever take as great a place in history as the steamboat, but I did invent it.”
—Caresse Crosby (1892–1970)