Tom,

The UK's Railway Touring Co. visits the line this September, with eight steam locomotives to be in use. http://tinyurl.com/yby8ntk

Jim Tatum.

Hi Tom,

Sorry for the late reply, but I have only just got back from Jordan. I was
there for a few days as a guest expert speaker at a EU workshop on Road
Public Transport Safety.

The line has definitely not closed down. I had a lengthy audience with the
Director General of the Railway, Major General (ret.) Mahmoud Al-khazaleh.
He spent over an hour with me in his office telling me all about the line,
its history, current status and plans for the future.
There are currently two or three freight trains per week and on Fridays and
Saturdays there are short tourist passenger trains from Amman to a station
not far from the Airport. These are all diesel-hauled by one of the five
50yr old US built diesels.

Steam is used for tourist trains as requested. These are usually from
foreign tour operators. However, if they have a couple of days notice, they
will lay one on for any group (if they pay the money). It is amazing journey
by steam through the desert.

The DG said that they have six operational steam locos. I'm not sure that
this is entirely accurate. They obviously have a couple of clearly
no-operational ones (coupling rods removed on isolated pieces of track). Of
the operational ones, I think that some may need some work before being
used. How much work, I couldn't say. However, there a clearly about three
that could be fired up at short notice. These include the RSH 2-8-2 no. 23
which is having a few new tubes fitted on my photo.
On my tour, I saw engineers repairing locos and using machinery to make
parts etc. The place is definitely still alive and open for business. The
stores also includes many old parts for the locos that have been there since
the 1950s. They even had a spare cylinder block casting in there!

There are 170 employees on the railway, which has 34 stations in Jordan and
they are staffed 24 hours a day. Incidentally, the guards of the trains are
authorised to carry guns.

I have seen the forum postings. The RYTC doesn't use 8 locos in Jordan on
their tour, only two; These two:
http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=315878 and
http://graham-williams.fotopic.net/p63538903.html

The other locos mentioned are to be in Syria, of which I know nothing.

I have some more photos taken on the visit on my fotopic site:
http://graham-williams.fotopic.net/c1820422.html I still have some more to
add, as time permits.

The DG requested that I spread the word around the enthusiasts movement and
encourage people to visit them.

If anyone from the US would like to visit, maybe I could assist with setting
up a tour. I now have a good relationship with the staff there. I think the
RYTC tour is rather expensive. I reckon it could be done by a private group
for much less than their prices.

Hope this helps, feel free to put all this info. on the forum.


Cheers,

Graham

See my photos at:
http://www.railpictures.net/showphotos.php?userid=23204
and
http://graham-williams.fotopic.net/