Various news sources report the [re-?]start of commuter rail services in Baghdad at the end of October, which is good news.

AP has some photographs, A train arrives at al-Alawi railway station, central Baghdad, Iraq, on Thursday, Oct. 30, 2008, showing DEM2727.

Baghdad Central station in 2005 (Photo by Mark Hemphill)

Commuter rail trains running in Baghdad to relieve traffic jams

by Fu Yiming, Jamal Hashim

…
The 25-kilomter commuter rail, a section of an old railway which had been damaged by the war and stopped running for years, came into operation just a few days ago.

It shuttles between central Baghdad and the mostly Shiite neighborhood of Kazimiyah north of the capital or the mainly Sunni suburb of Yousifiyah in the south, which makes a handful of stops in both Sunni and Shiite neighborhoods. A ticket costs 1,000 Iraqidinars (equivalent to 80 cents).

“The train is faster than cars, it avoids stopping in traffic jams and dozens of checkpoints that people obliged to pass through,” a Transport Ministry official said on condition of anonymity.

….
At the main station in Allawi area in central Baghdad, metal detectors and body search conducted by male and female security members are set at several checkpoints.

There are also walls that protect the railroad along with security forces protecting main and some stops for the train.

The anonymous Transport Ministry official said that “there are no security problems among those Sunni and Shiite districts, because situation is calm now” and there are also walls that protect the railroad along with security forces protecting main and some stops for the train, “but everybody knows that there is no 100 percent of guarantee for safety, not in every place in the world.”
[more]
Source: Xinhua

The official Iraqi Republic Railways website gives a timetable, but it doesn’t survive a Google translation:

News is very important

The company of the Iraqi Basthat railway line to transport people

As “the 10-27-2008 works on the side of Karkh to train
Services and absorb the momentum off in the Karkh side of the station
Central at 5.35 am, “passing” Mansour station at 5.50
And the field or drums session at 6.12 and the Abu Dshir to station
Yusufiya train at 6.25 am. “And leave the station for Yusufiya”
Baghdad at 6.50 am, “and hit the Abu Dshir 7.07 pm
Morning “and reach the station at 7.10 and 7.25 Mansour up station
Morning, “as up to the train station Kadhimiya at 7.50 am.” And again
Passenger b at 2.45. Aa train station Kadhimiya through “station
Mansour train at 3.09 b. And an AM or drums session at 3.27
B. AA and the Abu Dshir, to close at 3.45 b Yusufiya. Aa.
And re-boarding the train station at 4.00 pm Yusufiya, “passing”
Abu Dshir area in order “to the train station at 4.15 pm”
Access “to the train station at 4.46 pm Mansour” and up to station
Central Baghdad at 4.45 pm. ”

Fare (1000) thousand dinars only
Source: Iraqi Republic Railways.