Transport 

Transport is without doubt the most talked about subject during the Hajj. Almost every pilgrim has his own ideas about how transport services could be improved. The origin of these ideas is the pain endured by pilgrims due to inadequacies in transport services. If Hajj is "a struggle", then enduring these inadequacies is an important part of this "struggle." When a 7 km journey takes 5 hours by bus, you can easily imagine the agony you would have to endure.

Some tips are given below to help the intending pilgrim to cope with this pain.

1. In anticipation of the air-con system in your bus malfunctioning, bring along a hand fan and small towel.

2. You will see a lot of things along the way that worsens the traffic situation. These include indiscriminate parking, poorly maintained buses that have broken down, accidents and the quarrels that follow, inadequate traffic enforcement personnel in some stretches, drivers who disregard traffic rules to make as many trips as possible, etc. 

Do not let all these bring out the animal in you. Remain calm. Remain focused on the big picture. Think about your pleas and pledges to The Almighty a short while ago at Arafat and the specific things you should be doing from now to make you a better servant of The Almighty. 

The Mashair Railway - built by Chinese contractors,
with Canadian engines, and operated by Malaysians.

The Mashair trains will be transporting about 1 million pilgrims during the 2011 Hajj season, Insha Allah, this will make transportation a lot easier for many pilgrims. The trains connect Mina, Arafat and Muzdalifah. The train service has a capacity to carry 72000 pilgrims per hour.

The train service will reduce about 30 tons of harmful gases in addition to carbon dioxide emitted from nearly 120,000 buses operating during the Hajj week. This pollution causes health problems for pilgrims, especially for those suffering from heart and asthma related diseases.

 

Transport news 

Railway link

A plan to link Makkah and Madinah by railway via the commercial hub and entry port of Jeddah has been approved.

The train will travel up to 300 km per hour, allowing a Mecca-Jeddah journey time of half an hour and Jeddah-Medina in two hours. Insha Allah, the project will be completed by mid 2012.

To Hajj by bicycle

In 2007, Dzhanar-Aliyev Magomed-Ali, a 63-year old Chechen, cycled all the way from his home in the Caucasus Mountains to Makkah and back. The pensioner crossed 13 states on his bike, apparently after his mother appeared to him in a dream and told him that he must perform the
hajj, and perform it on a bicycle. He traveled through Azerbaijan, Iran and war-torn Iraq, where he claimed a group of American soldiers smashed his bicycle and called him a “Russian pig.” He had to head back to Iran, and bypassed Iraq by riding through Armenia, Georgia, Turkey, Syria and Jordan before finally making it to Saudi Arabia.