Until recently the Arabian Peninsula had long been a backwater for rail development.
Despite hosting the now-defunct Hejaz railway made famous by the exploits of Lawrence of Arabia, until 2009 the six states of the Gulf Cooperation Council (the GCC) – Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, the UAE and Saudi Arabia – between them had only operational railway, a 200 km single-track link between Riyadh and the oil hub of Dammam.
In the oil-rich region, where petrol costs are as low as $0.45 a gallon, it is no surprise that the car has been king. However, increasing congestion, especially in cities, and a growing environmental awareness have led the GCC states to start investing billions of dollars in new rail and metro networks, in one of the world’s most ambitious new state-funded rail-build programmes.