SAUDI ARABIA.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

Photographic archive and reports relating to the recommissioning of the Hejaz Railway. A unique archive relating to the earliest post-war attempt to reconstruct the Hejaz railway and link Damascus with Medina. It comprises an extensive sequence of well-composed reference photographs providing a detailed visual record of the progress of the surveying party, entirely unpublished, and complemented by original reports issued by the International Resources Engineering and Exploration Group (IREX).In 1925 the last trains travelled the full length of the railway. Thereafter, the line south of Mudawwara was washed away, and the conflicts that led to the creation of Saudi Arabia in 1932 dampened collective efforts at reconstruction. It was only after the Second World War that Jordan, Syria, and Saudi Arabia began to explore the possibility of renovating the railway, forming an investigative committee for this purpose in 1948.As the Engineering News-Record reported on 7 November 1957, those three countries "had asked for bids for reconstruction of the 506-mile section of the Hejaz Railway Line, which runs from Ma'an in Jordan southward to Medina in Saudi Arabia". In 1956 an engineering contract was awarded to IREX, and the New York city consulting firm of Brown & Blauvelt, a member of IREX, were to design the project and supervise construction. "IREX includes two other members - Jack Ammann, Photogrammetric Engineers of San Antonio, Texas, and Geophoto Services of Denver". The Hejaz co

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