2017: The Start of Regular Service for a Railway Line in Saudi Arabia

February 26, 2017

Regular passenger train runs began for a railway line in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. This inaugural segment of the line was built between Riyadh, Saudi Arabia’s capital city, and the Qassim Region in the central area of the country. The line was launched by the Saudi Railway Company (SAR), which has been part of Saudi Arabia Railways since 2021.

Rimaih Al-Rimaih, who was serving as head of public transport for SAR at the time of the line’s official debut, highlighted the significance and scope of this transit route. The English-language daily newspaper Arab News reported that he “said the new project is the biggest in the Middle East and a key component in transporting citizens and residents between cities and regions of the Kingdom.”

In 2018, the line was extended to the city of Qurayyat in the northern section of Saudi Arabia. The Riyadh-Qurayyat line covers 772 miles (1,242 kilometers) altogether. It serves a total of six stations.

Photo Credit: FlyAkwa (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:FlyAkwa) – licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en

For more information on the Riyadh-Quaryyat line, please check out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riyadh%E2%80%93Qurayyat_line