Damascus, SANA – Freight trains have been back into service on Lattakia-Tartous-Homs axis after nearly a five-year suspension due to the terrorist war launched against Syria, Director General of the General Establishment of Railways Najib Fares announced, saying this has been possible after that the establishment has carried out repair and rehabilitation works of a number of the railways.

In statement to SANA reporter, Fares said that the establishment has inaugurated “trains of victory” on the axis of Aleppo al-Ansari-Jibrin and a sub-railway towards the silos in Shinshar in Homs of 935 cm long , adding that the establishment has launched the first freight train that carried 1500 tons of grain from Tartous port to Shinshar’s silo, in addition to transporting fuel by the establishment’ trains and vehicles from Homs Refinery to Tartous Cement Factory.

Fares noted that the establishment is currently conducting the necessary maintenance of the trains and vehicles at its workshops at Aleppo locomotive warehouse after it has been provided with the necessary equipment and spare parts, indicating that there are 40 locomotives which work with various capacities on the Lattakia–Tartous–Homs axis and Aleppo–Jibrin axis, including 48 passenger vehicles and three sets of trains, the capacity of each is 283 passengers, in addition to 1730 trucks for transporting goods and oil products.

Fares went on saying that the establishment is working to implement its plans in the field of goods transportation on Homs-Tartous–Lattakia axis, by which the amount of transported goods since the beginning of the year 2017 until June 10th reached 208,000 tons.

The establishment has also run a passenger train from Tartous to Lattakia and another one on Aleppo–Jibrin Aleppo axis to serve citizens at affordable prices, he said, adding that the number of the passengers on Syrian railways reached 248000 passengers since the beginning of 2017 until June.

The director pointed out that the establishment is planning to establish economically viable projects such as railways from the Qatina station in Homs to Hassia quarries, the industrial city, the dry port and the container yard to secure the unloading and loading of 10 million tons per year.

In Aleppo there will be a 25 km railway project from al-Mislmiyeh station to Jibrin passing through the Industrial City, in addition to establishing the dry port station and the sub-railway project towards the internal free zone in Lattakia at a 750 m length, Fares clarified.

He went on saying that the establishment is currently preparing a future plan for the next 30 years to carry out a comprehensive and phased development of the entire Syrian rail network, especially the main transport hubs to and from the Syrian ports in Lattakia and Tartous, and to upgrade the pass-through capacity and improving the technical and service level of the network in a way that conforms with international technical and service standards.

Shaza/H.Said