From Berlin to Baghdad on the Ruins of a WWI Railway

Dispatch

From Berlin to Baghdad on the Ruins of a WWI Railway

The unfinished line traces a fractured region still beset by competing imperial projects. August 22, 2025, 2:40 PM Comment icon View Comments ( )

A man and child hold hands as they walk along rubble- and grass-covered railroad tracks. Palm trees and power lines frame the scene.

MOSUL, Iraq—South of Mosul, Saleh stood in front of a ruined station with his son. Along the tracks, train cars lie wrecked, pocked with bullet holes. A pair of skinny cats looked out from the doorway of the former ticket hall. “My father was the stationmaster here,” he said. “But he died in 2003 and I took over. That was also the year the trains stopped running on time. After ISIS, they stopped running at all.” He doesn’t know when they wi