International Railroad Discussion > A Little from Jordan by My Son

My older son, Karl W. Putz, visited the Kingdom of Jordan last week. No, he's not affiliated with any government agencies. He sent me these images.

The first image is of a 4-6-2 on display near Shakaria, Jordan, on the Wadi Rum Road, about 40 miles northeast of Aqaba, Jordan. On Wikipedia I found that the Hedjaz Jordan Railway built this branch from Ma'an to Aqaba in 1975 and sold it in 1979 to the Aqaba Railway Corporation. The Hedjaz had at least one 4-6-2, built by Nipon Sharyo in either 1953 or 1959 as #82. The gauge is 1050 mm, about 41.3 inches. There never was passenger service on this line.

These appear to be ballast hoppers.

There's more in the second section.

Gerry



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 02/19/18 20:57 by GPutz.

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The ARC train in these images is near Sharkaria coming from Aqaba, so it's empty cars. The lead locomotive appears to be GE-built U17C #301. According to The Diesel Shop site, GE built 10 U17Cs for the ARC in 1974 as #954 - #963. However, GE also built 15 U17Cs for Chemins de Fer Syriens, the Syrian remnant of the original Hedjaz Railway, in 1976 and the first was #301. So this could be a Syrian U17C that emigrated to Jordan. The ARC hauls phosphate from near Ma'an to Aqaba for export by ship.

Update: It now appears that #301 is a U20C built by GE do Brazil in 9//80 for ACR. See post below.

Gerry



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 02/20/18 16:21 by GPutz.

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Very nice to know something from this distant country. I am wondering if the locomotives need sand boxes in countries like this that are almost all sand desert.

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Pedro Rezende
Vespasiano MG,
https://youtube.com/c/minasgeraisrailways1

Neat shots. From research I've done, the Syrian U17C's still seem to be in Syria and in service, to some degree. I made a post a few weeks ago with a like to a recent video of one in service.

Looked up gauge for this road. 1050mm or 3'-5-11/32"

Thanks. I did the math myself and corrected. Gerry
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usmc1401 Wrote:
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> Looked up gauge for this road. 1050mm or
> 3'-5-11/32"

Andre Kristopan's GE do Brazil list

CTC070001LN 3/07 C24-EMP 1050 Aquiba Railway (Jordan) 701
CTC070002LN 3/07 C24-EMP 1050 Aquiba Railway (Jordan) 702
CTC070003LN 3/07 C24-EMP 1050 Aquiba Railway (Jordan) 703
CTC070004LN 3/07 C24-EMP 1050 Aquiba Railway (Jordan) 704
C24-EMP = 108T

Older USA built ARC stock
http://www.railfaneurope.net/list_frameset.html
Treat the GE export list here with caution, not to discredit the author, but it was penned in the UK from a limited palate of source documents. Link to Word document towards the bottom of the page. There are differences between GE Sales Dept and Engineering's lists, plus their nomenclature for model differed
http://www.locopage.net/ge.htm

JORDAN (* built GE do Brasil)
Aqaba Railway Corporation
10 400-409 39954-39963 U17C 1850 7 FDL 8 1.050m C-C 12/74
3 410-412 41410-41412 U18C 1950 7 FDL 8 1.050m C-C 1/77
18* 300-317 2500993-1010 U20C 2150 7 FDL 12 1.050m C-C 9/80
Hedjaz Jordan Railway
5 40209-13 40209-40213 UM10 1050 Cat D 398 1.050m A1A-A1A 4/76
18 41999-42016? 41999-42016 U17C 1750 7 FDL 8 1.050m C-C 1979

ARC are documented as having hired/leased HJR locos

It will take a bit of digging to unearth the references (W-D-L Yahoo Group?), but a number of the U20C were returned to GE do Brazil for rebuild in the '00's

Thank you for this information. From your post:

"18* 300-317 2500993-1010 U20C 2150 7FDL12 1.050m C-C 9/80"

It appears that GE do Brazil built 18 U20Cs, #300 - #317, for Aqaba in 9//80.

Gerry

GPutz Wrote:
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The Hedjaz
> had at least one 4-6-2, built by Nipon Sharyo in
> either 1953 or 1959 as #82. The gauge is 1050 mm,
> about 41.3 inches. There never was passenger
> service on this line.
>
> Gerry

Here's 82 in Amman in April 2006. The northern end of the Hejaz at that time was still open to the Syrian border with the Syrian part of the Hejaz open on to Damascus. 82 was operational, as were a couple of other locomotives, all maintained in Amman at a shop that sort of reminded you of the East Broad Top. I have no idea what the current situation is, though certainly operation through to Damascus is not active. This part of the Hejaz was a government-owned operation, unlike the Aqaba Railway which was a separate corporation the south end of the Hejaz as well as the Aqaba extension. The was a segment immediately south of Amman down to the first phosphate operation, roughly 20 miles as I recall, that was intact but out of service.

Gordon

Gordon

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Thanks for the picture of #82. Gerry