In 1910, a French company built a train to be used by the Beys of Tunisia (the monarchs from 1705 – 1957) to travel between their palaces on the outskirts of the capital and their offices in its center. The train is known as the ‘red lizard’, others call it the ‘red rat’ and some just call it the ‘Bey train.’

After independence and the end of the Bey rule in 1957, the train went out of service and was left neglected in the warehouses of the railway company. It was then reused on the Thalija Mountain routes (460 kilometers south of Tunis).

In 1910, a French company built a train to be used by the Beys of Tunisia (the monarchs from 1705 – 1957) to travel between their palaces on the outskirts of the capital and their offices in its center. The train is known as the ‘red lizard’, others call it the ‘red rat’ and some just call it the ‘Bey train.’

After independence and the end of the Bey rule in 1957, the train went out of service and was left neglected in the warehouses of the railway company. It was then reused on the Thalija Mountain routes (460 kilometers south of Tunis).

Locals agree on one narrative that implies that Habib Bourguiba, the first president of the republic, was behind the suspension of this train in the outskirts of the capital in order to obliterate anything reminiscent of the Bey Era. Finally, in the 1970s, the Bey train was sent on a one-way trip to Metlaoui city in southern Tunisia.

Erasing history

Ayman Dinari is a resident of Metlaoui and an unemployed history teacher. He says: “The neglect of the Bey Train, which is a historical artifact, is part of a general consistent behavior practiced by successive governments in order to obscure a whole era of our history which is the Bey rule.”

On the hills of the Thalija Mountains and through their tunnels, a tourist exploration trip lasts for two hours. Sami Sadrawi, the manager of the travel agency organizing the Bay train trips said they organized at least one trip a day in the 1990s until the Tunisian revolution. “The security situation and the turmoil in the phosphate mine area caused a drop in our daily trips and reluctance on the part of tourists to use the Bey train,” he said.

Mohamed, an assistant of the railway company, which oversees the maintenance of the train in Metlaoui station, remembers the first days of the train’s arrival to the south and how it became a destination for the young and the old alike. He said the train consisted of a trailer for the bay, another for his assistants, a restaurant, and two wagons for luggage. “Today we merely see moving trailers that do not explain that this train is the Bey train.”

Eric, a TV producer riding the Bey train, said: “What is this train for, if it does not tell of the history of Tunisia?”

“It would have been possible to transform one of the train wagons into a museum to tell us about the Bey era, stages of phosphate extraction in Metlaoui and Gafsa Governorate in general,” he added.

What to do with a relic

A resident of Metlaoui who works in the Gafsa phosphate company described the topography of the Thalija area: “When the train passes through the Thalija routes, the traveler might think he is in the American Colorado Mountains.” He pointed to a nearby river saying the valley stream ends up in al-Gharsa shore.

The visitor would notice a natural spring that used to make the trip even more pleasant before the valley stream was contaminated by the phosphate washing waste water, which turned it into ponds of filthy water.

Between 1914 and 1920, the French dug four tunnels through the Thalija Mountains for trains carrying phosphate to pass through.

Dinari says that there are many neglected tourist areas such as the Berber caves in the Send Mountains in Gafsa and the Roman ruins in the Qata’ area, which are hard to reach using regular means of transportation from Um Al-Araes, a city in the mine area in Gafs—he says the train could have been used for travelling in those areas. 

The youth of Metlaoui have been known to block the ‘red rat’ when demanding employment, or in making other demands. Unemployed young people from the area believe that the presence of tourists, particularly foreigners, would embarrass the authorities into responding to their demands.