From another blog. Hmmm… interesting.
In the last 5 years a significant portion of the arab nations have been putting in large electrified rail networks: Iran has connected all its main cities, and built promissory links to the borders of Pakistan, Afghanistan and Turkey. Syria is developing new lines, Libya is opening lines, the southern states – Saudi Arabia, Qatar etc are planning a large high speed passenger network and freight network and of course Turkey is just about to open their first high speed link between Ankara and Istanbul.
If you’re a large exporter of oil, why would you build an electric rail network? Surely with cheap oil you can be the last place to burn oil? I wonder whether the governments realise that supply and demand are crossing, and would rather make lots of money selling that oil whilst moving away from it themselves.