All Aboard: How Saudi Railways Are Picking Up Speed

In June 2025, The New Arab reported that Egypt and Saudi Arabia were nearing the beginning of construction work on a high-speed railway link between the two countries. With technical investigations on the project already complete, the proposed railway would run from the Egyptian resort town of Sharm El-Sheikh to the cape of Ras Alsheikh Hamid on the Saudi side through a bridge that links the two countries via Tiran Island. Once completed, this railway would establish the first direct international rail link between Africa and Asia, advancing Vision 2030's ambition to position Saudi Arabia as a hub bridging the two continents.

While this proposed megaproject is the latest to grab headlines, it is simply part of a larger development in the Kingdom: since the announcement of Vision 2030, Saudi Arabia has been investing heavily in the development of its rail networks and connectivity. In November 2024, Saleh Al-Jasser—Minister of Transport and Logistic Services and chairman of Saudi Arabia Railways—ambitiously declared that the Kingdom plans on expanding its rail network from 5,500 km to over 8,000 km, abetting Saudi Arabia in becoming a global logistics hub. As part of this ambition, Al-Jasser, at the first Saudi Rail Conference and Exhibition, announced the Asasat Program, aiming to localize the railway industry and offer over $4 billion in investment opportunities by 2030 while creating over 3,000 jobs.

However, long before Al-Jasser's announcement, Saudi Arabia had long been quietly developing its railway infrastructure: when I first visited the capital city Riyadh in 2023, I was dismayed by the lack of public transportation apart from a bus in the city center, which forced me to use the ride-sharing app Bolt to get around. The next year, this dismay gave way to astonishment, as our co-founders at 5Terra returned from the capital detailing how clean, modern, and convenient the Riyadh Metro was. Completed in 2024, the Riyadh Metro was broken into several different contracts awarded to companies in the U.S., Europe, and India in order to speed up implementation and diversify. In a historically car-centric city, the Riyadh Metro became a success, moving over 18 million passengers in just the first two months of operation alone. As the Guinness World Record holder of being the longest driverless subway in the world, the Riyadh Metro is a testament to the Kingdom's investment in sustainable public transport with a particular focus on railways, and comes on the heels of the Chinese-built Sacred Sites Train Line in Mecca. With the World Cup 2034 coming to the Kingdom, more of these lines can be expected to increase mobility in cities across the Kingdom, with plans for metros in Jeddah and Medina in motion. In fact, once completed, The Line will rely exclusively on a high-speed rail line connecting both ends alongside a planned metro, becoming a driverless city.

Meanwhile, in the deserts of the Kingdom, rail lines have also been constructed between Saudi Arabia's biggest cities. In 2018, the Haramain High Speed Railway connecting Mecca, Jeddah, and Medina was completed, becoming the first high speed line of its kind in the Middle East. Further east, Riyadh is home to two notable rail lines: a passenger line to Dammam (home to the Kingdom's oil industry alongside a key port) and another to Qurrayat near the border with Jordan. Now, financing is nearing completion on the Saudi Landbridge Project, which aims to build a railroad between Jeddah and Riyadh, thus connecting the Red Sea with the Arabian Gulf through enabling seamless rail transportation between Jeddah, Riyadh, and Dammam. All three railways are under the state-owned Saudi Railway Company, officially Saudi Arabia Railways (SAR).

Saudi Arabia's railway ambitions go beyond its borders. In addition to the link with Egypt, the Kingdom has set its eyes on a potentially $250 billion line that is projected to connect Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, the UAE, and Oman, all by rail. Currently, the world's third largest megaproject (and second largest in Saudi Arabia after NEOM), the railway has faced implementation issues for years due to the need for political coordination among all six Gulf countries. However, last year, the GCC announced the completion of several early steps in implementing the project. Although the project is expected to be completed in 2030, the project will likely take a little longer due to the aforementioned political complications.

Nevertheless, the Gulf Railway project is a testament to the Kingdom's railway ambitions and its goal of becoming an international hub. From metro lines in Riyadh and Mecca to high-speed rail connections along the Red Sea and future international links, Saudi Arabia's commitment to rail transportation is critical to its Vision 2030 ambitions and looks to be a development that is here to stay.