Train Set: Track Two

Next Stop: Mecca, Saudi Arabia

There’s one particular train line that, for one week a year, reports having the highest capacity of any metro system in the entire world – but there’s a caveat: it only operates for that one week a year. The network is based in Mecca, and the reason it only operates for this short annual period is that it’s designed for a single purpose: moving Muslims around the region during the Hajj.

The whole region is notoriously crowded during this holy week. People flood in during the Hajj because one of the five pillars of Islam is visiting Mecca at least once in your lifetime (or at least for those who are able) during this narrow window of time. It also gets super hot during Hajj, so spending a lot of time outside traveling between sites can be risky. Physical safety is definitely part of what drove this project later on.

Back in the day, pilgrims traveled by camel or on foot. And then when these roads came along, as any urbanist knows, they ironically led to more congestion, not less — especially with the rise of personal motor vehicles. So in 2009, they started building this rail line and the project employed thousands of engineers and even more construction workers who in total had to move nearly 200 million cubic meters of earth. Despite that, the whole thing was completed in just two years, which is incredibly fast, if you think about the scope. And then in 2011, it carried nearly 4 million pilgrims around between these holy sites. They have calculated that this train system replaces the need for over 50,000 service busses, which of course helps reduce that congestion. They could, of course, be run year-round, but the route just isn’t that convenient for everyday commuters, so instead they put it in mothballs for most of the year, then bring it back out for special occasions.