Names of the Saudi Portion of the Railroad

(from Halet Amm'ar to Madina Station)

Below is a chart of the Saudi portion of the Hejaz. (Halet Amm'ar to Madina Station) The names of 41 stations / stops are taken directly from the name plates except for a couple of locations where they have been taken from government issued maps. This is because the physical location had no name plate and some (like Bir Nasif) have been removed.

The stops that don't have name plates are: (halet ammar, that al haj, al uthealy, birk, qurayn ghazal, al mustabgha and bughaz). The rest of the name plates were in location, at least at the time of writing this: March 2005.

Some of the forts are not related to the railroad but they are located near the railroad. Most of these are older in construction than the railroad (like al swara)

The problem with the names originates from the fact that the Ottomans used to write in Arabic but the pronunciation was in Turkish. (i.e. Turkish language written with the Arabic alphabet). The problem with the name: Ralid Raad is that it doesn't sound meaningful in Arabic nor in Turkish. If a Turkish person reads this, perhaps they could contact me with help with this name. (If you can offer some help, please contact the webmaster of Nabataea.net here.) On August 9th, 2006, Tosun Saral contacted us and confirmed for us that 'Ralid Raad' was not a Turkish name.

M. Nagshabandi (Saudi Arabia)