For many years Lengiprotrans has been developing the railway network in the Syrian Arab Republic. The main task was to connect seaports with the eastern regions of the country for the export of goods. Before the start of these works, Syria had only one railway.
One of the stages was the development of a project of a line along the Mediterranean coast for operational communication between two Syrian ports - Tartus and Latakia. Also, the road was supposed to serve the adjacent region, where the cement and oil refineries were located.
In 1982, field work began on the track. Already in 1983, in parallel with the survey, the construction of the railway began. A feature of road design in Syria was the track gauge of 1,435 mm.
The Tartus-Latakia line was traced in difficult topographic and engineering-geological conditions. Among other things, most of the land on the coastal plain was occupied by irrigated arable land and citrus orchards.
16% of the subgrade was designed according to an individual plan. High embankments were envisaged and a large number of rock cuttings were excavated.
There are 267 artificial structures projected on the highway, which is 3 times more than the average indicators on other lines. Among them are 18 medium and 5 large bridges with a length from 108 to 223 m, as well as 22 overpasses at intersections with the highway, which was being built in the same period.
In 1986 the railway was put into operation.
