(Source: AFP via Yahoo News; The National)

The Mashair Railway, also known as Mecca Metro, rolls out on Sunday to serve pilgrims beginning the annual hajj rituals near the Muslim holy city, bringing a new solution to crowding.

The dual-track light railway, with its initial number of nine stations, connects the three holy sites of Mina, Muzdalifah and Mount Arafat — areas that see massive congestion during the five-day pilgrimage.

Some other interesting nuggets:

• The new system will replace 4,000 buses previously used. Initially, the trains will be only be used during 5 days of a year,
• The rail system is accessible only to Saudi and Gulf pilgrims (forecast at some 130,000 Saudis, 10,000 Kuwaitis and 10,000 Bahrainis) during the first phase and other nationalities will be allowed to ride during the next phase.
• It will operate at 35 per cent capacity, carrying up to 175,000 pilgrims between Mina and Arafat, over a distance of 18km at a speed of 80-120kph. When it is completed next year, the automated metro and its yellow-and-green carriages are expected to carry half a million pilgrims every six hours.
• Overall, the Metro is expected to eliminate between 30,000 and 50,000 cars and buses from the roads near the holy sites. The most common modes of transport are buses, in which different nationalities travel separately, with mingling occurring mainly during the rituals themselves.
• Cost of the project is pegged at $1.8-billion project. Ticket fares for the Metro are about 250 riyals (Dh252), but there are plans by the Saudi Haj Commission to reduce it to 90 riyals.
• The team behind this system development/operations is truly multi-national – Built by China Railway Construction Corporation, operations and maintenance will be managed out by British firm Serco.  The control systems and platform operations will be manned by Egyptians and Saudis.

Image Courtesy: Go-makkah.com

This will be the first of two rail links aimed at easing pilgrim traffic. The much larger Haramain High Speed Rail, which will travel through the Red Sea city of Jeddah, is set to stretch 444 kilometres (275 miles) between Mecca and Medina, the second Muslim holy site.  The first phase of the high-speed rail network expected to cost $1.8Billion, will be built by another multi0national team, including local Al-Rajhi construction group, France’s Alstom and China Railway Engineering. The trains are expected to reach an operational speed of 225 miles/hr and ease traffic of pilgrims between the two sites.

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