Beirut 1870: The Secret Railroad That Never Reached Lebanon

In the late Ottoman Empire, the Beirut-Damascus railway was supposed to be Lebanon's gateway to modernity. But it never reached Beirut. In Episode 91, Lucas and Luna uncover the forgotten story of the Beirut-Damascus railway — a French-backed project that got within miles of the sea before it stopped dead. Why? Nationalist rivalry, Ottoman suspicion, and a quirk of geography. They trace the line from Damascus across the Anti-Lebanon range, through the Bekaa Valley, to the port of Beirut — that part, at least, in the original plan. Instead, the railway terminated at Rayak, and passengers bumped down a mountain road to reach the capital. Lucas explains how the French built the line not to connect Lebanon but to outflank the British in Palestine and the Germans in Anatolia. He introduces the forgotten engineer Edmond de Perthuis, who surveyed the route in the 1870s, and the Ottoman pashas who blocked the final stretch. The episode also explores how the railway transformed towns like Zahle and Baalbek, and why its failure left Beirut isolated until the 1940s. A story of infrastructure, empire, and the near-miss that shaped modern Lebanon.

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