The trip to Badanah was uneventful,  large stretches of the road have been improved and upgraded to a divided highway .  This picture was taken in 1947 which shows the first road spread in action.    The later asphalted road  (1962 - 1964) is now well worn but has stood up to the heavy traffic reasonably well. I did notice that wherever Tapline has its microwave towers, there are now two additional towers not too far away that are used for Saudi Telephone and another one for an unknown purpose. There is also a fiber optics cable buried north of the old road as there are repeaters at regular intervals. So communications facilities have improved and the cellular phone system now covers the entire Northern Area.  Quite a few new villages are now built up along the road. Nowhere is that more evident than in a satellite picture that shows the illumination of the world caused by artificial lights. (Photo from NASA archives) Take a look at this night picture of the Middle East and one can clearly make out the lights along the pipeline. starting from Hafar al Batin with KKMC south of it.  Rafha  area. Badanah with Judeideh on the Iraqi border to the north and Sakaka south of it and further west Turaif.    

We stopped briefly at Uwaigilah.. The turbine like all the other turbines, except Riyatain, was sold as scrap in September 1997 for Sr. 35.000 or $ 9358. More about these sales later. The old site is covered with bits and pieces that were left behind by the removal crew.      The town has grown but not as dramatic as the main towns near the stations. Along the way I noticed and remembered several major leaks that occurred in this area, notably Km. 362 where a longitudinal weld failed in 1971. 

 Badanah station is still complete and it serves as the maintenance base for the entire pipeline. I was introduced to the present "Tapline In Charge" Fahat B. Anizi.  Fahat who is an electrical engineer, came from Aramco, there are no old Tapline employees currently working in Badanah other than Othman el Hajj who is still working in Communications , Abdel Latif Al Ruwaileh who used to work as a Shift Operator in Badanah Pumphouse and is now the General Foreman and Fayez Khamsan who is Pumphouse Supervisor and still handles Government Relations. 

 The picture shows Rubaya al Hazmi who used to be a Shift Foreman who now owns the  Al-Haramain Hotel in Arar, Dhaifallah Matkhan who became the Pipeline Maintenance Foreman and Fayez Khamsan.
Both the upper and lower housing areas look very good.  The trees have grown tremendously and many new palm trees have been planted over the years throughout the camp.  
              

The Community Center is complete, all kitchen facilities are in place.
The hospital had a complete face lift some years ago, a small staff is still maintained  there although the  few remaining employees are using the government medical facilities in Arar.   
                                               

The Industrial Area is still the same, the only addition is a small mosque built just south east of the old gas station.  One of the waterwells is still in use and the Waterwell rig is positioned over it.  You guessed it, Mohanna employees rebuild the Reda pumps and  pull the pumps if and when required.

                                         

  Driving around the station I noticed that the rear of the first house on the right in the Upper Housing area,  the Reefer body where the TV equipment used to be is still there !    
The Pumphouse and all its equipment is still maintained. In the Powerhouse the generators are used, one is enough to carry the load. As with the impellers for the Reda waterwell pumps, the spares for the Worthington diesels like the RC-29 ring combinations and chromed liners are starting to run low. The three horizontal tanks on the right of the fin fans are the diesel fuel tanks for the Worthington diesels                                                                                                                                                   .

                                                        

Fahat kindly offered me to stay in the Guesthouse, but I would be the only resident in the station along with some stray cats. I had already accepted an offer by Ashraf to stay with him in his house in Arar.      The Guesthouse rooms are still the same as before, 
this is my favorite room 6.                                                                            
Because I would be leaving Badanah after sundown, Ashraf drove me up the line to have a look at Jalamid. The area north of Badanah has not changed very much. After you pass the police station just up the hill the only change is a 
 few more gas stations and associated restaurants. The only location with a history is actually the UCP station
where on the 12th of September 1966 a bulldozer from the road spread crawled over the pipeline berm and the ripper hit the top of the line causing a 20 inch gash  resulting in a large leak and subsequent fire bellowing huge clouds of smoke into the blue skies.

                                The crew of the Gemini XI spacecraft took a routine photograph of the Sinai Peninsula on that same day.The picture shows the Sinai Peninsula bordered by the Gulf of Suez and the Gulf of Aqaba and above that a large slice of a.o. Saudi Arabia. The black spot in the top right corner is the smoke of that fire.   (Photograph courtesy of NASA JSC )
The UCP stations and statio rectifiers are maintained by two Mohanna mechanics, one services the 8 UCP stations east of Badanah while the other services the 7 stations up to Km. 840.  If I may judge their performance by the appearance of the equipment at Km.625, they are doing a very good job.

Next stop was Jalamid. Here as in Shubah and Uwaigilah, the turbines were removed and a lot of bits and pieces were left behind. The main line station loops were cut just after the  station valves and capped so that all other lines such as the fuel system and instrument lines were dead as well.  Many of the lines are only partially visible, being mostly buried by blow sand.  
 
                                                                     

On the last evening of my stay, the 15th of July, Fahat organized a party in the swimming pool,  he had also invited some of the old employees from Turaif to attend. The pool is well maintained and the water looked very inviting, all the pumps and equipment in the pumproom is new and was running well. The one thing I noticed as soon as I entered inside the pool area was the steel framed table and canopy that was salvaged from the Turaif pool. 

About 25 people attended the party, which was a very pleasant affair with plenty of good food that was ably prepared by Ashraf Ali's cross crafted employees !        

The following are some of the pictures taken that evening.

At around 10 pm. we thanked Fahat for his hospitality and said Good Bye to all the guests.  Khoder Ali then drove me to Turaif.

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