Questions & Answers

1) What is the story behind the railway terminal? Is it considered as an end point/final destination or as a transit stop along some route?

By terminal we mean it is the end and final point of the journey, or the start of the journey. In other words, the international trains will start (or end) their journey from this platform.

2) What do you mean by 4 platforms for domestic service? Should it be 4 platforms+4 tracks, 4 platforms+8 tracks or 2 platforms+4 tracks? What is the total expected number of tracks both for domestic and international service?

This is clarified in the attached cad file sent after registration: One terminal for two trains of 250m long platform. And 4 trains with platforms of 150m length each two running in opposite directions. So the total local trains are four, and two international trains

3) Are tracks supposed to be used only for passenger service or for freight service as well?

This has not been clarified and hence is not a requirement of the competition.

4) What do you mean by “A table showing the proposed program" in the brief? Could you specify a bit more what are we supposed to showcase in this table?

By table we mean an excel type of table, where the proposed program is shown with the functions and the corresponding areas.

5) Do you have any local legislation specifying safe zone from railway tracks to residential buildings/roads etc.?

No within out allocated site participants are not required to abide by any legislation about safety distance and or buildings heights

6) Should we consider high speed trains for international terminals or the proposal should be only about regular trains?

This is not specified in the competition, but it is more likely that proposing a new design in the 2022 should cater for high speed trains

​​​​​​​​​​​​​​7) Can the dead-end railroad tracks be located outside the boundaries of the proposed site?

Regardless of what you mean by dead-end railroad, your proposal should fit within the allocated site boundaries.

8) Should we write down our registration number of the panels (A3+A1s) ?

yes that is correct, all the submitted materials should have only your registration number.

9) Since there will be trains running opposite directions, will that mean that the site acts as a terminal of 2 exits/entrances, or it just means that trains might not run in the same direction, but all end in the same place, which is the site?

as per the competition brief we are looking for

(a) One terminal for TWO (2) international trains. This is where the international travel starts or ends (the rails finish here)

(b) Four (4) trains with platforms of 150m length each two running in opposite directions.

10) is there any specific program for this project?

Besides the trains terminal the brief does not require any specific pre-set program and is left to the participants to propose and implement

11) Based on the answer of question 1, are you saying that internationals start or end here, so if Lebanon is letter B, Turkey letter C, and Syria is letter A, an international travel can't pass from A to C, passing through B. Is that statement correct? In other words, nothing passes through the site.

Ok this looks more complicated than it is. The answer is a yes and no. All international trains will terminate in Beirut, in the site. They do not cross or pass through the site. Furthermore; as far as our competition is concerned, we are NOT taking into account how the trains will go up north to; East, or South we assume that this shift can happen somewhere off-site on the tracks. On our site we have only two international trains that terminates on the site.

12) In addition, based on the answer to question 1, I can identify 2 entities: One terminal for 2 trains +  One station for 4 trains. Is that statement correct. I thought that they are both combined into one Terminal/Big Station. Is that possible or should they be somewhat separate?

The statement is not fully accurate, it is up to the participant to either combined all these tracks and platform together or separate them. As long as they proposal fits the minimum requirement for local and international travels.

13) The presence of dotted lines allows us to choose from 1 of them, so all 6 trains shall run in that chosen direction, or we can pick both dotted lines and make one for international trips and the other for local ones?

Please note that the dashed lines as only guidelines, participants are free to modify their path as they see fit

14) On site there is a Prison. It is included in the site as given, or we can disregard its presence. In case not, are there other untouchable buildings on the site that we should be aware of?

As far as the competition is concerned please assume the site is empty, with no buildings.

15) Are we free to remove all settlements inside the site?

As far as the competition is concerned please assume the site is empty, with no buildings.

16) As for the A3 panel, could we insert our visual and add minimal text such as project title, and 1 line description or name of the drawing (something very brief like Render showing XYZ) ?

This is up to the participants, but the general recommendation would be to keep the cover page with minimum to no text besides the title.

17) Could we have a uniform dimension/height for the registration code characters and location on the panel, or are we free to choose that?

That is kept to the participants, as long as it is not too big, nor too small.

18) Could you please share the link, where the answers of all questions will be published?

Once it is all posted it will be available on the main page.

 19) any existing building in site should we keep or we can work as an empty site?

for the existing buildings on Site: there are actually limited numbers of buildings (maybe a maximum of 5) and they are either low rise buildings (2-3 floors) or light constructions (steel hangars)
in any case Yes you can and actually you should work on a site that is Empty.
No need to take any existing building on the site into consideration.

20) I know that we have 2  trains terminals with a platform of 250m and an other station with 4 trains paths in 2 opposite directions my question will be if may we consider the first to train path as international way and 4 opposites trains as national path? Because you know working on international path should add some additional fonction like customs area that it can't be in the national station.

about the train types
if i understood your question, you are actually stating the correct facts
two trains terminates at the station, these are the international trains, and they would need international travel security and custom checks.

The other four trains are not terminating at this station, they are crossing it only. that’s why each two run in one direction and the other two run in the opposite direction. These four trains are connecting local Beirut and other major Lebanese cities

21) if we review some international studies like egis for example we can see that a train station can be on different level some are elevated, others are underground and others on 0.00m therefore my question will be if we have any restrictions about the train path level ?

For the levels, that’s completely up to the participants. As far as we are concerned, as long as all the trains are part of the proposal, we have absolutely no problem in any layout of the tracks in terms of levels.

22) Are we supposed to use all the site given or we have a construction area limit as it's a big site for only a train station.

How to use the site is left to the participants’ proposals. Basically you have no minimum area to implement your proposal, nor a specific area within the site.

23) the site given has no topography lines: are we free to consider the topography of the site?

The site has no topography lines but has all the levels of its boundary, it is up to the participants to decide on how to manipulate these levels within the site.