Railways

📖 In short

Railways are tracks of parallel iron rails that trains run on. Every day thousands of trains run around the world, some carrying passengers and some carrying heavy goods like coal, grain, cars and containers.

🤩 Did you know?

Australia has the longest straight stretch of railway in the world, about 478 kilometers.
Some freight trains are more than a kilometer long.
Metro trains run underground in big cities.
The distance between the two rails is the same on most lines.

🔎 Find out more

🌟 Why rails?

A train's metal wheels roll very easily on smooth rails, so a locomotive can pull very heavy wagons with less effort than trucks need on roads.

🔍 The first railways

Railways began in England about two hundred years ago, with steam locomotives pulling wagons of coal and passengers. Then railways spread across every continent.

💡 Very fast trains

Japan, France and China have very fast trains that travel at more than 300 kilometers an hour. In Saudi Arabia the Haramain high-speed train runs between Makkah and Madinah.

🎯 The Hejaz Railway

More than a hundred years ago the Hejaz Railway was built from Damascus to Madinah to carry pilgrims, and some of its old stations are still standing.