After years of neglect, the local administration in Ninewa announced that it has started the renovation of the Mosul train station as part of plans to revive the city’s railway service which sustatined massive damage during the war against the Islamic State (IS).
The train station is located in the al-Sidiq Street, known as al-Mahatta Street, on the right coast of Mosul.
Wa’d al-Hadidi, an engineer at the Ninewa directorate of municipalities told KirkukNow that engineering teams of the ministry of reconstruction have embarked on the reconstruction of the Mosul train station.
The railway station in Mosul, the provincial capital of Ninewa, was built in the 1930s by the British army.
Mosul turned into a gateway for cargo and passenger trains from Syria and Turkey to Baghdad and Basra in the south.
However, due to the break out of tensions between Iraq and its neighboring countries, most of the trips from Mosul were to and from southern parts of the country.
“The Mosul railway station was completely damaged during the military operations launched by Iraqi forces, supported by the international coalition against IS,” Wa’d Al-Hadidi added.
Rail services from Mosul to Turkish Gaziantep via Aleppo in Syria returned for a while in early 2010, but it discontinued several months later.
“Engineering teams has not determined a time frame for the completion of the project”, al-Hadidi said, indicating that “the real challenge lies not in renovating the railway station but the railway lines.”
Mosul train station which is now turned into a bus stop used to have rail schedules from Mosul to Baghdad, Aleppo and Gaziantep.
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