Beirut–Damascus Railway

Rail transport in Lebanon began in the 1890s as French projects under the Ottoman Empire but largely ceased in the 1970s owing to the country's civil war. The last remaining routes ended for economic reasons in the 1990s.

Beirut and Damascus were first connected by telegraph in 1861 and by a macadam road in 1863.Syrian railways connecting the two cities (90 mi or 140 km over the crest of the Mount Lebanon range) or another port were planned as early as 1871 but were not enacted. In 1889, the Ammiyya Revolt broke out among the Druze and other Syrian farmers. The Ottoman response to the insurrection included a number of railway concessions—quickly sold to foreign interests—to improve the development and centralized control of the region.

Hasan Beyhum Efendi received a concession to construct a tramway between Beirut and Damascus in 1891. Beyhum Efendi sold the concession later that year to the French Beirut–Damascus Tramway (French: Compagnie de la voie ferrée économique de Beyrouth–Damas) or Lebanon Railway, which was anxious to forestall two mooted British lines, one from Jaffa and another from Haifa, either of which would have undercut Beirut's status as the primary port of the northern Levant. In the event, the Jaffa line was never extended towards Damascus and the Haifa line ran out of money having completed just 8 km (5.0 mi) or 21 mi (34 km) of track.

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