Importance of Railway Engineering in Oman's Transport Sector

Running Head: RAILWAY ENGINEERING
Railway Engineering
Name of the Student
Name of the University

1RAILWAY ENGINEERING
Abstract

2RAILWAY ENGINEERING
1.0 Introduction
The objective of this study is to analyze the transport sector of Oman and determine the
importance of railways in the country. The current transport sector of Oman does not include any
railways system but a project has already been authorized for building a railway network along
the coastal region of the country. The estimated length of the railway network is around 2135 km
and will include both passenger lines and freight corridor. Currently, the Sultanate of Oman does
not have a suitable transport infrastructure and all the in-land transport depends on the road
networks that provide connectivity to various important parts of the country. Oman mainly
depends on water and air transport for commercial logistics and hence, it is largely important to
develop a new transport infrastructure for in-land movement of people and goods.
In this report, the need for transportation infrastructure in Oman has been analyzed and
suitable recommendations have been provided.
2.0 Railways in Oman
2.1 Need for Transport Infrastructure for the Country’s Progress
Although Oman is a massively advanced country, it requires further progress and
transport is expected to play a major role in the same. Currently, the transport infrastructure in
the country is not very well developed in terms of in-land movement. The only mode of transport
inside the land is road transport that consists of a number of intercity highways (Samir, Shahbaz
and Akhtar 2018). However, expect the connectivity between the major cities, there are not many
roads for greater connectivity with the smaller towns especially the inner parts of the country in
and around the desert. The road network most developed along the coastline and is utilized for
passenger transport and transport of oil and other goods to and from the port. Air transport is also
popular for cargo transfer with other countries. For the inland transport of goods, trucks and
tankers are used that are slow and often take huge amount of time to travel between cities that are
separated by a large distance (Belwal 2017). As a result, the commercial processes are hindered
and delayed due to the slow movement of the goods. Hence, railways can solve this particular
problem by providing means of fast transport of goods from one point to another. With the new