Railroads-European companies hope to prosper from railway mania in the Middle East
Railways have not made much news in the Middle East since Lawrence of Arabia blew up the Hijaz line in 1918. But bosses in the $165 billion global rail industry have been flocking to the Gulf lately, lured by the prospect of an investment boom. Every country in the region has drawn up plans for ambitious rail projects. Qatar and Kuwait are spending around $10 billion each, and the United Arab Emirates is shelling out twice that. On their shopping lists are monorails, bullet-trains and local metros, the first of which (pictured) will open in Dubai in September. Not to be outdone, Saudi Arabia plans to spend $15 billion to increase the size of its rail network nearly five-fold. Pilgrims could be riding the rails to Mecca and Medina at 360kph (225mph) as early as next year, rather than plodding along the kingdom’s notoriously crash-prone roads. And this is just the beginning. All these planned national lines will eventually be connected into a regional network, at a further cost of at least $14 billion.
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