Re- opened Iraqi railway a sign of progress

Fallujah, Iraq: The newlyrevived railway between Baghdad and Fallujah snakes across the western Iraqi desert, through a landscape of burned- out tanks, abandoned cars and collapsed buildings. For the last month, Captain Imed Hassun has taken pride in once again driving the route between the capital and the former Islamic State group stronghold. “I didn’t think that a train would come back here again,” says Hassun, who has been a driver for 30 years but had until recently been redeployed elsewhere. While government forces expelled IS from Fallujah in 2016, the line still bears the scars of the group’s two- year occupation of the city and its environs, including mines it planted along the tracks. Before the jihadists’ rise, Hassun and his co- driver steered the BaghdadFallujah route during some of the most turbulent times in Iraq’s history. They had even kept trains running during much of the combat between American forces and Sunni militia in the mid 2000s, and the sectarian clashes that preceded the rise of IS. But while happy to be back on this line, Hassun — clad in the marine blue and white uniform of Iraq’s railways — proceeds with caution. So far, he has successfully pushed his new Chinese- built diesel train to 100 kilometres ( 60 miles) per hour. But he dare not go faster, as the rails have only just been brought back into basic working service by a team of dedicated employees. “When we started the work, people mocked us,” says Yussef Thabet, the chief railroad engineer in Fallujah. “But as soon as the first convoy entered the station, people were forced to believe it — and now they demand more trains,” he adds. There remains much work to do. Fallujah’s old station is still in ruins, replaced for now by a prefabricated structure and plastic chairs. But for passengers, the revitalised line is a vital link to the capital and the only alternative to polluted and gridlocked roads. Road travel is frequently made even less appealing by security personnel forcing traffic into unexplained detours. For years, medical student Ali Ahmad took the minibus every week to a university campus in Baghdad. Now in his final year, he finds taking the train aids his study.