The cities of Mecca and Medina will be joined in less than two and a half hours by a high speed train from 2017
Nobody had built a high-speed train in the middle of the desert. Until now. The “holy places” of Mecca and Medina will be connected from 2017 by about 450 kilometers of railways along which these trains are expected to pass every four minutes, transporting up to 160,000 people a day in periods of high pilgrimage.
It is a more than ambitious task and, not without problems and controversies, marks a milestone in the global high-speed rail travel, as well as the Spanish foreign trade. In fact, with a value of 6,700 million euros, it is the largest contract won by Spain abroad.
This AVE will be the train of change, figures and records, despite being based on the Spanish high-speed railway. In fact, the maximum speed of 300 kilometers per hour is the feature that will not vary between the two train lines. The rest are just similarities.
The desert itself, with its peculiar characteristics, caused the infrastructure to undergo changes from the beginning, and will continue to do so as the work proceeds.
The sand and high temperatures are the worst enemies of the train and the track. With extreme temperatures both day and night, as well as sandstorms, the project has had to adapt to these conditions. It has placed special protection in windows, exterior areas and coatings that prevent abrasion caused by the sand at high speeds. In addition, the cars have a special sealing to prevent the ingress of dust and sand, particularly in filters and mechanical and cooling equipment, failure of which would influence the cessation of rail service.
At the same time, trains will feature special air conditioners to respond to the 55 degree heat that can be reached during the day and even the 2 degrees that can occur at night.
And if that were not enough, it is expected that the railway is operational 23 hours a day. The remaining hour will be dedicated to cleaning the tracks from sand, where the ballast (stones between the rails) will have been replaced by concrete to facilitate this work.
Undoubtedly, its implementation and overcoming these problems is like finding water in the desert. Like a dream come true.
