Iraq trains back on track
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Iraqis wait to leave Baghdad Central Station en route to Basra.
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For the first time since before the war, an Iraqi passenger train left Baghdad bound for Umm Qasr. CNN's Karl Penhaul reports (May 7)
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SPECIAL REPORT
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BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Trains between Baghdad and the southern Iraqi port city of Umm Qasr have resumed service for the first time since the war began.
Restoring the service was a key milestone in rebuilding the Iraqi infrastructure, providing Iraqi civilians with a return to some normality after the collapse of Saddam Hussein's regime last month.
The daily passenger train left the Iraqi capital on Wednesday afternoon for the 14 to 16-hour journey to Umm Qasr via the country's second city of Basra. Tickets for the 600-kilometer (370-mile) journey cost 1,000 dinars (50 U.S. cents).
U.S.-led coalition military forces are providing security and logistics for the service, which is being funded by the U.S. interim administration. The trains returning to Baghdad from Umm Qasr will also carry 140,000 tons of food supplies every month.
Baghdad train station's chief engineer said he was proud to be involved. "I feel glad because I want to make my company work ... and to give services to our people and give them transportation," Aladin Sader told reporters.
The Office of Rehabilitation and Humanitarian Assistance (ORHA), headed by retired American general Jay Garner, says it wants the trains to be run by Iraqis. "It's all their decision. It's their operation," said U.S. Army Lt. Col. Bob Peletier.
"I sit every day in their meetings and listen to their planning and what they're going to and how they're going to do it. They are completely capable of doing it themselves. They just need financial assistance and other things like security," Peletier said.
Coalition forces and Iraqi rail workers tested the Baghdad to Umm Qasr train on April 30 but Wednesday was the first time paying passengers used it.
The resumption of other passenger services -- from Baghdad to Mosul, in northern Iraq, and from Baghdad to Al Qa'aim, northwest of the capital -- are expected in the near future.
