A century after its opening by the Ottoman Sultan, the Hejaz Railway, the line blown up repeatedly by Lawrence of Arabia, is to be rebuilt as an intercity express.

A £180 million contract to reengineer the world-famous narrow-gauge line as a standard-gauge railway was signed by the Jordanian Government in the margins of the World Economic Forum that ended yesterday at the Dead Sea.

A private Chinese company, Infrastructure Development, in tandem with Pakistani contractors, is to start work in 2009 to transform a short stretch of the neglected line, creating a light commuter railway between Amman and Zarka in the northeast. There are plans then to rebuild the line all the way to Damascus.

The proposed new electrified railway would link the Syrian and Jordanian capitals with an express taking only two hours. All customs and border formalities would take place in the terminals at each end. At present a little-used diesel-operated service runs twice a week, but takes at least eight hours. Many of the rails have not been changed since the line was built, and still bear the Ottoman crest.

The Chinese consortium has been granted a 30-year contract to run the line before handing it over to the Jordanian Government. Jordan will pay a third of the cost, with the Chinese contributing the balance.

The railway marks one of China’s most ambitious projects in the Middle East and is likely to give China a visible presence in the region, just as the TanZam Railway, built in the 1960s from landlocked Zambia to the Tanzanian coast, gave it in Africa.

The project has thrown into doubt the continued existence of the historic 1,050mm-gauge line, which is seen widely as one of the most romantic and skillfully engineered railways in the world.

Abu Feilat Abdul Razzak, the director of the Jordan branch of the Hejaz railway, hopes that a way can be found to relay the narrow-gauge line inside the new track so that trains can still run from Damascus to Aqaba on the Red Sea.

Built by German engineers, the line was originally used to transport pilgrims from across the Ottoman Empire to Medina and Mecca. The train journey took 70 hours – far quicker than the 14 days by sea or about 40 days by camel. The line was also seen by Abdul Hamid II, the Turkish Sultan, as a way of consolidating his hold on the restless Arab provinces in the south, and a strategic route to Arabia that could not be blockaded by European naval powers.

In 1900 the Ottomans appealed to the Muslim world for donations to build the line through the inhospitable desert terrain. Construction began in 1901 and the route was opened, with great ceremony, in 1908.

Barely eight years later it became the prime target for Colonel T.E. Lawrence and his army of Beduin, who, with British support, had risen in revolt against Ottoman rule. The line was dynamited, blowing up several Turkish troop trains.

After the war the southern section from Maan, near the Saudi border, south to Medina was abandoned. Ancient steam locomotives are still marooned in isolated stations along the route. Jordan, Syria and Saudi Arabia agreed to reinstate the line in 1963, but although British contractors were engaged, the project made no headway.

In the 1970s German contractors built a new spur through the precipitous mountains around Wadi Rum, Lawrence’s desert hideout, to Aqaba, to allow the export of phosphates from mines in central Jordan. The southern section of the line was renovated but is now used only for freight.

All three countries have recently begun to see the huge tourist potential of this famous line. The new line to Zarka will be double-track and electrified. Mr Abdul Razzak said that it would be completed in 2½ years. “But I think the Chinese may finish it in 1½.”

Like several Arab countries, Jordan is looking again at railways as a way of relieving its crowded roads and improving public transport for its burgeoning 5.5 million population.

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