Robert W. Richardson A Lima 2-8-2 pulls the Basra-Baghdad mail across the Iraqi desert in 1944.

In December 1944, a bunch of us were given a furlough in Palestine. We were taken by truck to Basra where we boarded the 6 p.m. mail to Baghdad. The train ran on meter gauge (3 feet 3-3⁄8 inches) and had about 20 pint-sized cars, including a brand-new diner. On the head end was a Lend-Lease, Lima-built 2-8-2. The train was full, and the trip took 18 hours.
The railway had been constructed by British forces during and after the Mesopotamian Campaign against the Ottoman Turks. In 1916, the Brits opened the first segment from Basra to Nasiriyah and ran armored trains operated by Sepoy crews.

Following the capture of Baghdad in 1917, British forces built military railroads radiating out of Baghdad to secure the countryside. It took them longer to get a railroad through the desert to Nasiriyah and, hence, to Basra. But that was done by 1920. In 1936, ownership of the railroad was passed to the Iraqi monarchy set up by the British.

Owing to its military origins, most of the railroad ran across the desert, bypassing the major towns and roughly paralleling the Euphrates River. A line of trees in the far distance indicated where civilization was. I took a few photographs, but the desert was flat and monotonous. The train carried tanks of water to some of the desert towns, many of which were little more than a collection of squatters’ huts.

Baghdad was dusty and buggy and had none of the impressive government buildings of Tehran. The royal family had no ties to the country. They were essentially puppets for the British, and in 1958 the whole clan was murdered. A Brit told me about a horse-drawn double-decker railroad that, sure enough, served a holy shrine a few miles outside the city. I have often wondered if the railroad still exists.

I had time before our truck ride to Tel Aviv to look over the standard-gauge railroad that started east of the Tigris River in Baghdad and ran north to the Syrian border and on to Turkey. At the station, I watched the Orient Express arrive from Haydar Pasha, on the Bosporus opposite Istanbul. It had five cars, including a handsome Wagon-Lits …