There are many incidents which used to occur on board of this familiar guest that sizzled in the streets. George explains:” I was once waiting by the sidewalk and a young man was getting off the Tram, but his Cherwal (folkloric Lebanese pants) got caught in the stairs so he was dragged for a few meters before the Tram stripped him of his pants and ran off”.

Today some parts of the railroads and a few wagons are the sole survivors of what once was the Beirut Tram. The old rusty wagons are resting today in a huge lot in Dekwaneh area.

However, there have been many talks about reviving the train system in Lebanon, first of which was in 1998, when a French company was handed over the project and requested to reinstate the railroad system. And like every project in Lebanon, it was born shyly and died calmly. In 2008, Public Transport Minister Mohamad el Safadi mentioned the launching of such a project, connecting Tripoli to Syria, and Beirut to Tripoli but the project was held because the Syrian government demanded the hiring of a Syrian contractor to finalize the deal, and amidst the delicate situation between the two countries the project was frozen again.

We can say that like many other things that the war robbed us off. The tramway was also a victim of a long pointless war. Today, all what is left is some debris of the railroads, waiting once again to feel the rage of what was once called the tramway of Beirut. What is certain is that with the increasing fuel on one hand and the the absence of parking areas in Beirut. The need for a cheaper means of transport will be a must. Will the tram remain a talked about project or will it rise again, and finds its way to execution? Only time and the new government can tell…We remembered…will you?