Hejaz railway

The Hejaz railway was a narrow-gauge railway that ran from Damascus to Medina, through the Hejaz region of Saudi Arabia, with a branch line to Haifa on the Mediterranean Sea. It was a part of the Ottoman railway network and the original goal was to extend the line from the Haydarpaşa Terminal in Kadikoy beyond Damascus to the holy city of Mecca. However, construction was interrupted due to the outbreak of World War I, and it reached no further than Medina, 400 kilometres short of Mecca. The completed Damascus to Medina section was 1,300 kilometres.

The main purpose of the railway was to establish a connection between Constantinople, the capital of the Ottoman Empire and the seat of the Islamic Caliphate, and Hejaz in Arabia, the site of the holiest shrines of Islam and the holy city of Mecca, the destination of the Hajj annual pilgrimage.