IT was a historic trip for me! I would have declared: “That’s one small step for (a) man; one giant leap for mankind.”

Wait! It wasn’t a Mars landing, or anything near that. But for those waiting for such a train trip to Madinah for ages, it seems so. Thankfully, I was among few hundreds invited to test ride a high-speed electric train from King Abdullah Economic City to the Prophet City. Others had joined Prince Faisal Bin Salman, Madinah Governor, in a longer journey between the holy cities of Makkah and Madinah, via the yet-unfinished Jeddah station. From Jeddah, a third trip was led by Makkah Governor Prince Khaled Al-Faisal.

It was an amazing experience for all of us. It wasn’t like the first time we traveled in a high-speed train. Many, including me, have had such experience, but not in Saudi Arabia. The last time I did, was last year between Vienna and Paris.

Trains are not new to the Kingdom, however. We had them for some seventy years now, since King Abdulaziz requested the oil company ARAMCO to build a line connecting Dammam Port in the Eastern Region to the Capital Riyadh. He had a vision for his vast country to be tightly connected coast to coast, north to south, by an extensive network of roads and rails, in addition to air. This was vital to the development program for newly-born Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Seventy years later, the vision is almost complete with 28 airports, 50,000 kilometers of roads and 1,500 kilometers of railways. Few weeks from now, for the first time in history, the holiest Muslim cities are about to be linked by 500-km railway, traveled by a 300km/hr express train. Millions of pilgrims will soon be able to do a 5-hour bus trip in just over an hour. That is in addition to the already built light trains in Makkah, and over 100 km trains and metro under construction in the Holy City.

In Riyadh, a more extensive tram, metro and bus system is about to be completed, in 2019. The length of the “Riyadh Metro is 176 kilometers and includes 85 stations. It is integrated with a 24-lane bus network with a total length of 1083 kilometers, including 776 stations.

A similar project is conceived for the city of Jeddah. Several lines will be built over the course of five years with an aim to increase public transport share to 30 percent from the current 1 to 2 percent. The town will have three metro lines. The first line, with a length of 67 kilometers, will have 22 stations; the 24-km second line will have 17 stations while the 17-km third line will have seven stations. The public transport system will also have 816 buses operating services to 2,950 stations.

Other cities will follow. Railways are to connect Riyadh with the Port of Jeddah, and the mountainous towns of Taif and Khamis Mushait. Future plans include a costal line from Jeddah to Jazan. Railroads connecting Riyadh and Dammam to Qasim, Hail and northern cities near the Jordanian and Iraqi borders are mostly done. Connection to networks in neighboring countries is conceived.

The Gulf Railway, also known as the GCC Railway, is a proposed railway system to connect all six Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)-member states. The rail network will have a total length of 2,177 kilometers. The project estimated to cost $250 billion is scheduled to be completed by 2021.

Each of the six GCC member states is responsible for implementing the portion of the project that lies within its territory, and will construct its own railway lines and branches, stations and freight terminals. The cost will be shared by the six countries in proportion to the length of the rail network in each country. As a result, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia will spend the most on the project, followed by Oman, Qatar, Kuwait and Bahrain. The Saudi Railway Company will develop the network in Saudi Arabia, Etihad Rail in the UAE, Oman Rail in Oman, and Qatar Rail in Qatar, according to Wikipedia.

Then who knows? Yemen is a good candidate to join, so are Egypt, Syria, Turkey — and on to Europe and Russia. What politics failed to achieve, hopefully railways could. If Arab governments couldn’t unite us, a good network of transportation might do.

Good public transportation is a major tenant of Saudi Vision 2030. We need to use less of our oil resources and protect more of our environment. We need more reliable and efficient means of transport. Welcome to the age of Saudi railways!

Dr. Khaled M. Batarfi is a Saudi writer based in Jeddah. He can be reached at kbatarfi@gmail.com. Follow him at Twitter:@kbatarfi