Rayak Train station

I found this incredible link: the Rayak Train Museum proposal, which proposes to preserve and reveal the country's modern history by transforming the train stations, and train factories into a museum, in the city of Rayak.
The first railway was built in Lebanon during the Ottoman Empire. The French-established Société des Chemins de fer Ottomans économiques de Beyrouth- Damas-Hauran which was granted a concession in 1891. In the Beginning of August 1895 the first train took off from the port of Beirut to Rayak railway station. In Rayak, officials from all over Europe and the region where waiting for the train to arrive in order to celebrate what it was as the beginning of the Middle Eastern rail history.
Visit the link at: http://www.rayakrailway.org/english/rayak_railway_project_info_en.html

Where's the track?

Welcome to this Blog, and my first posting; October 2nd 2011.
Although the journey we were initially meant to take during this course, was to be from Damascus, riding the train from the historical Hijaz train station (hence the title) all the way to Serghaya, our itinerary was altered. The location will no longer be in Syria, but in Lebanon, and the course remains based on a railway journey.
The class started last Tuesday. We discussed the plans for our trip, how long it would take and what we would need to prepare for it.
I also presented an overview of alternative comics, different genres such as memoir biography, BD reportage, travel journals and many others.
On Thursday we screened the movie Train,Trains where's the track, by Lebanese Film Maker Rania Stephan. The film documents her adventure discovering the railway tracks of Lebanon in 1998. The film covers the west-east railway starting in Beirut and ending in Riyak, that has long been terminated (we learned that its activities had diminished immensely before the civil war, for political reasons and was completely early in the civil war). The film takes us through the journey discovering the stations, tracks and inhabitants of the railway.
Hopefully we will be posting our adventure here, on a weekly basis if not daily!