Housed in the old Medina terminus of the Hejaz Railway, this museum tells the story of one of the most ambitious infrastructure projects in Middle Eastern history. The line, completed in 1908, connected Damascus to Medina — a distance of 1,800 km through harsh desert terrain. Sultan Abdülhamid II funded it partly through donations from across the Muslim world, framing it as a project to serve pilgrims and strengthen Ottoman prestige.
At its peak the railway cut the overland journey from Damascus to Medina from forty days by camel to three by train. It never reached Mecca — the original plan — and the southern sections were wrecked during the Arab Revolt and never rebuilt. The museum displays vintage locomotives, a restored station building, original railway equipment, and photographs from the Ottoman era that capture the engineering feat and the human effort behind it.