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Damascus has two main stations: the historic Hedjaz Railway Station on Sharia Port Said (currently under restoration) and the modern Kadem Railway Station, 3km (2 miles) south of the city centre. Microbuses for Kadem station leave from the central depot next to the National Museum, and taxis are relatively cheap.
Trains services are as slow as they are unreliable and not often used. Syrian Railways (CFS) (website: www.cfssyria.org) runs domestic services from Damascus to Aleppo, Latakia and Tartous, as well as international services with a weekly train from Damascus to Tehran, and the weekly Toros Express via Aleppo, Gaziantep in southern Turkey to Haydarpasha station on the Asian side of Istanbul. A slow twice-weekly narrow-gauge train links Damascus with Amman in Jordan (223km/139 miles), running over part of the famous Hejaz Railway (website: http://nabataea.net/hejazad.html), the line attacked by TE Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia) and the Arabs during the Arab Revolt in 1917. The train should be running again from summer 2007.
Trains services are as slow as they are unreliable and not often used. Syrian Railways (CFS) (website: www.cfssyria.org) runs domestic services from Damascus to Aleppo, Latakia and Tartous, as well as international services with a weekly train from Damascus to Tehran, and the weekly Toros Express via Aleppo, Gaziantep in southern Turkey to Haydarpasha station on the Asian side of Istanbul. A slow twice-weekly narrow-gauge train links Damascus with Amman in Jordan (223km/139 miles), running over part of the famous Hejaz Railway (website: http://nabataea.net/hejazad.html), the line attacked by TE Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia) and the Arabs during the Arab Revolt in 1917. The train should be running again from summer 2007.
