Haramain Railway: Complete Guide 2026 | Mecca-Medina High-Speed Train

Route & Stations

Journey Times & Fares

Train Features

Booking & Payment

Travel Tips

Related BusUpdate links

• Jeddah bus guide

🚄 The Haramain Railway in full — stations, times, tickets and luggage

The Haramain High-Speed Railway, operated by Saudi Arabia Railways (SAR), is the Kingdom’s flagship passenger railway: a 453 km electrified line (449 km between the two termini) linking Mecca and Madina at up to 300 km/h. It opened on 11 October 2018 and carries millions of passengers a year — 6.97 million in 2023 alone — most of them Umrah pilgrims travelling between the two holy cities. The trains are Talgo 350 trainsets of 417 seats (304 Economy, 113 Business, with a cafeteria car). This section is the complete reference: the five stations in order, what the journey times really are, how booking works (including the Nusuk app), and SAR’s official luggage rules.

🚉 The five stations, in order (Mecca → Madina)

1. Mecca Station — in the Ar Rusayfah district on the 3rd Ring Road, about 3.5 km from the Grand Mosque. Mecca’s Makkah Bus network (SR 4 flat) connects the station district to the Haram — see the Mecca transport guide.
2. Jeddah Station (Al Sulaymaniyah) — Jeddah’s city station, in the An Nassim district, about 20 km from the airport. It is the station Jeddah’s Al-Balad link bus serves. (The original 2018 station building was destroyed by fire in 2019; the rebuilt station reopened in 2021.)
3. King Abdulaziz International Airport Station (KAIA) — inside the airport’s Terminal 1, reached by a 3.75 km branch off the main line (the station opened in December 2019, a year after the main line). You transfer between plane and train without leaving the airport.
4. King Abdullah Economic City Station (KAEC) — at Rabigh, by the Hejaz Gate of KAEC, about 18 km from King Abdullah Port.
5. Medina Station — in the Al Hadra district, about 9 km from the Prophet’s Mosque. Madina’s city buses (SR 3.45 flat, Madinah Bus) connect the station to the Haram area — see the Madina transport guide.

Not every train stops everywhere: stopping patterns vary by departure — some services skip KAEC or the airport. The booking portal shows the stops for the exact train you are buying.

⏱️ Journey times — the honest ranges

SAR publishes no static timetable: times are generated per date in the booking portal, and journey times vary by stopping pattern. The ranges below are what the services actually run:

• Mecca ⇄ Madina: about 2 hours on the fastest services; about 2 hours 20 minutes on typical stopping services.
• Mecca ⇄ Jeddah (Al Sulaymaniyah): about 35–45 minutes.
• Mecca ⇄ KAIA (airport): about 35–50 minutes.
• Jeddah ⇄ Madina: about 2 hours (from either Jeddah station).
• Mecca ⇄ KAEC: about 1 hour 15 minutes.

Against the road, the train roughly halves the Mecca–Madina journey (about five hours by coach) and removes the Jeddah airport-to-Mecca drive entirely for KAIA arrivals. Against the intercity bus network — now run by SAT, Northwest Bus and Darb AlWatan since the 2023 concession change — the train is faster but dearer and serves only its five stations; the coaches serve the towns in between. See the Saudi intercity buses guide for the coach side.

🎫 Booking: portal, app — and Nusuk

• sar.hhr.sa — SAR’s official Haramain portal, with the live timetable and booking.
• The HHR Train app (iOS/Android) — the same inventory, better for managing bookings.
• Nusuk — since 2025, Haramain tickets can also be booked through the Nusuk app (the Ministry of Hajj and Umrah’s pilgrim platform), confirmed by the Saudi Press Agency — the natural channel if the train is one leg of an Umrah journey booked in Nusuk.
• At the station — ticket counters and vending machines at all five stations.

Fares are dynamic — they move with the date, the departure and how early you book, so any page printing one fixed Haramain fare as “the price” is out of date. Indicative recent ranges for Mecca–Madina have run roughly SAR 145–200 in Economy and SAR 240–300 in Business including VAT, with discounts in the ticket conditions for children (50% Economy / 40% Business), infants sharing a seat (90%), and passengers with special needs (50%). Book early for Ramadan and Hajj, when the popular departures sell out — in Hajj 1446 SAR scheduled over 4,700 trips and more than 2 million seats for the season, and still the peak trains filled.

Boarding: check-in and boarding procedures start 60 minutes before departure and the gates close 10 minutes before the train leaves. Have your ID/passport with the ticket — matching the intercity coach rule.

🧳 Luggage — SAR’s official rules

Each passenger may bring one large piece of luggage up to 25 kg, maximum dimensions 65 × 55 × 35 cm, plus one hand item (a backpack, laptop bag, camera bag, purse or nursery bag). Trains have overhead shelves for hand luggage and shelf stacks for the large pieces, and luggage is security-screened before boarding. The prohibited list is strict — explosives, corrosives, poisons and firearms (including toy weapons) are banned, as are valuables (jewellery, gold, cash) worth more than SR 60,000 in your luggage. If you are travelling with Umrah luggage volumes, the large-piece limit is the number to plan around.

🚈 The trains and the two classes

Every Haramain service is a Talgo 350 trainset — the Spanish-built high-speed trains ordered for this line — with 417 seats: 304 in Economy and 113 in Business, plus a cafeteria car (the fifth coach) serving the whole train. Economy is the default and is genuinely comfortable — this is a 300 km/h intercity product, not a commuter train — while Business buys wider seating and the quieter end of the train for the two-hour Mecca–Madina run. Both classes are reserved-seat: there is no standing, no unreserved coach, and no point arriving without a booking in the Hajj and Ramadan peaks.

🕋 Hajj and Ramadan — the railway at full stretch

The Haramain line’s timetable is built around the Islamic calendar. In Hajj 1446 SAR scheduled 4,768 trips offering over 2 million seats for the season (Saudi Press Agency figures), and for Hajj 2026 the plan rises to 5,308 trips and more than 2.21 million seats — an increase of about 11%. Ramadan brings its own surge pattern, with Umrah travel concentrated in the last ten days. Outside the peaks the same railway is a straightforward intercity service and seats are usually available a few days ahead; inside them, treat the train like a flight — book the moment your dates are fixed, and prefer the portal or app over station counters.

⚖️ Train, coach or plane — Mecca ⇄ Madina compared

• Haramain train: about 2–2.3 hours station to station, dynamic fares, five stations only. The fastest surface option by a wide margin.
• Intercity coach (Northwest Bus): about five hours, cheaper, serves intermediate points the train passes through. See the intercity buses guide.
• Domestic flight + transfers: Jeddah–Madina flights exist, but with airport time at both ends the train wins door-to-door for most travellers — and the KAIA station lets you combine them (fly into Jeddah, train onward).

❓ Haramain questions, answered

Which Jeddah station should I use?
Al Sulaymaniyah for the city (and the Al-Balad link bus); the KAIA station if you are flying in or out — it is inside Terminal 1.

Can I visit Mecca and Madina in one day by train?
Yes — about two to two-and-a-half hours each way makes a long day trip possible, though most pilgrims stay at least a night in each city.

Is the Haramain train part of Nusuk?
Tickets can be booked in the Nusuk app as part of an Umrah journey, or independently via sar.hhr.sa and the HHR app.

Does the train run during Hajj?
Yes — Hajj is its peak season, with thousands of additional trips scheduled; book as early as sales open.

How early should I arrive at the station?
Boarding procedures begin an hour before departure and the gates close ten minutes before the train leaves — in the Hajj and Ramadan peaks, treat the full hour as necessary, not generous: security screening of luggage and identity checks against tickets both happen before the platform, and the five stations are large buildings where the walk from entrance to train is not short.

🚌 Getting to and from the stations

• Mecca Station: Makkah Bus serves the station district — the SR 4 city network connects Ar Rusayfah with the central Haram stations (Al-Marwa, Jabal Al-Kaaba, Ajyad, Ibrahim Al-Khalil). Taxis wait at the station forecourt.
• Jeddah (Al Sulaymaniyah): the link bus runs between the station and Al-Balad; otherwise taxis and ride-hail are the city pattern — Jeddah’s new L-series network is documented in the Jeddah buses guide.
• KAIA: no transfer needed — the station is inside Terminal 1; follow the in-terminal rail signs.
• Medina Station: Madinah Bus routes serve the station area on the SR 3.45 flat-fare network — the same system that runs the 400 airport express and the Haram routes.

Data: Saudi Arabia Railways (SAR) Haramain portal and official baggage guidelines; Saudi Press Agency via AlRiyadh Daily (Hajj season scale; Nusuk booking, August 2025); line and station data per Wikipedia’s Haramain article, cross-checked. Fares are dynamic — the portal price on your date is the price. Independently compiled by the BusUpdate editorial team.