Photographs

Click on any photograph to enlarge it.

Tuesday, April 16, 2013

Steam Train At Wadi Rum



Interior of passenger car



Drove up from the Red Sea to Wadi Rum, there had been a lot of wind and visibility was less than ideal for photography.
Out in the middle of the desert was a steam train and we stopped to investigate. We met the engineer who told us the purpose was to do a reenactment of a 1916 battle. The train complete with flat car with machine guns mounts protected with sand bags would go down the track to a fort and there would be a battle with lots of explosions, men on horseback, lots of gunfire and blood. It had been scheduled at noon but had been rescheduled foe 4PM. He invited us to go along for free so we decided to take the next few hours to explore the desert and come back.That's were we got stuck in the sand, on a paved road. When it's blowing sometimes sand builds up on the road but on a deserted stretch we crested a rise and came to a stop in deep sand across the one lane paved road. Was able to slowly back up but then too much sand was scooped up under the low slung front end and we were stopped a few feet from being free. We were working at digging sand out  that that had built up under the front end when a Bedouin came by in an old truck and used his jack to raise the car and we put rocks under the front wheels so we could drive out.
When we got back to the train the schedule had been moved forward an hour and things looked iffy. We had a couple hour to drive to our hotel in Petra so we headed back, not the roads to be on after dark.

No comments:

Post a Comment