For many years Lengiprotrans has been developing the railway network in the Syrian Arab Republic. The main task was to connect the seaports of Latakia and Tartus with the eastern regions of the country for the export of goods (oil, cotton, wheat). Before the start of these works, Syria had only one railway.
First of all, the institute began to develop a project of the Kamyshly-Aleppo-Latakia railway line. The works were divided into two sections: Oronte - Latakia and Oronte - Aleppo - Kamishli.
In 1961, surveys were carried out on the Oront - Latakia section. In 1962, the project of this line was developed. The road passed through the valleys of the Bolshaya and Orontes rivers.
The difficult conditions of the route, especially in the mountainous part, the design seismicity of 7 points and the high atmospheric temperature required the development of innovative solutions.
First, individual subgrade designs were drawn up for almost the entire length of the line.
Secondly, a technology was developed for the construction of viaducts using cable cranes, sliding formwork for the construction of supports up to 72 m high. This made it possible to achieve a high rate of construction of support structures.
Due to the mountainous terrain, a large number of artificial structures were designed on the site: 12 viaducts up to 550 m long, 52 bridges, 8 tunnels up to 1500 m long, 6 overpasses, 173 culverts with an opening up to 9 m, aqueducts, siphons, cantilever spillways, retaining walls, embankments up to 31 m high, excavations and semi-excavations with a slope height of up to 60 m.
A feature of road design in Syria was the track gauge of 1,435 mm.
At the end of 1970, working documentation was handed over to start construction of the site.
