A new web of Arab railways could transform the Middle East

the Hijaz railway between Damascus and the holy city of Medina was ruptured by the British buccaneer-cum-scholar T.E. Lawrence in the first world war has overland travel out of Saudi Arabia’s hinterland seemed so simple. On March 31st the first passenger train pulled out of Riyadh, the Saudi capital, and sped north past 1,215km (755 miles) of sand dunes to Qurayyat, a town near the Jordanian border. Within weeks the sleeper was proving so popular that your aggrieved correspondent’s couchette was double-booked. “You’ll get your bed in heaven, God willing,” promised the train’s conductor, ushering him into one of the few vacant overnight seats.Colonial-era railway routes blocked or destroyed by conflict or disuse are being reconnected. From Marrakech in Morocco to Mashhad in Iran, governments are investing tens of billions of dollars expanding decayed networks. Some 25,000km of track today is expected to grow by tens of thousands of kilometres by 2040. Saudi Arabia is tripling its network. The region has two high-speed lines that whizz passengers at 300kph, with more being built.