Muscat’s rail story is currently a construction site 230 km up the coast: Hafeet Rail — the Oman–UAE line from Sohar to Abu Dhabi — passed 40% completion in June 2026, with track being laid and tunnels bored through the Hajar mountains.
Announced in 2022 as the Oman–Etihad Rail project and rebranded Hafeet Rail in April 2024 — after Jebel Hafeet, the mountain it skirts — the line is a joint venture of Oman Rail (Asyad Group), Etihad Rail and Mubadala. Passenger trains will run at 200 km/h carrying 400 guests; freight runs at 120 km/h linking five ports and more than fifteen freight terminals on both sides of the border.
The route leaves Sohar’s port-industrial zone, crosses into the UAE via Al Buraimi and Al Ain, and joins the Emirati national network for the run to Abu Dhabi — twelve-plus passenger stations in all. When trial operations begin, targeted for 2027, this becomes the first operational international segment of the long-planned GCC railway, and Oman stops being the blank spot on the peninsula’s rail map.
Honestly: not much, directly — the first line does not reach the capital. Sohar, 230 km northwest, is the Omani terminus, and Muscat’s passengers will still arrive by air or by the excellent coastal highway. What changes is strategic: once the country’s main ports and its biggest neighbor are bound by steel, a Muscat–Sohar extension becomes the obvious second act on the national map.
Until then, treat the railway as a reason to watch rather than a way to travel. The business case — freight from Sohar’s deep port and Al Ain’s logistics zone into the UAE grid — is exactly the kind of patient infrastructure Oman specializes in. Muscat’s own rail moment will come; the capital can afford to wait precisely because its airport and port are already working.
Do not let anyone sell you Muscat as a rail city — not yet. The honest story is more interesting: a country with almost no railways is building its first cross-border line through serious mountains, on time and on budget. When Hafeet opens, ride it from Sohar to Al Ain for the novelty; then fly to Muscat for the city itself.
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