Narrow-gauged railway at Iskenderun

Mert Sandalcı

The purpose of this article is to summarize the fact that in the late 1800's the narrow-gauged railway was one of the first railways to operate in Iskenderun (Alexandrette), the port of Hatay (Antioch) in South-eastern Turkey.

In the 19th century, Iskenderun had a swampy subterranean and in order to overcome this problem, the Ottoman government took action by constructing a narrow-gauged railway which ran smaller scaled steam-engined trains.

This steam-engined railway was used to transport boulder-rock material to dry out the swampy regions. But importantly enough, the narrow-gauged railway was also used for leisure purposes, for example transporting families to picnic areas.

It is sad to note that the narrow-gauged railway, as importantly as this, used in the building blocks of todays Iskenderun, has long been forgotten.

Key words: Anatolia, narrow-gauged railway, Iskenderun, Hatay, Alexandrette, Antioch, Turkey; Anahtar kelimeler: Anadolu, dekovil, demiryolu, İskenderun, Hatay, Türkiye.