No Train Songs in Arabic

The other night, I was laying in bed and was hearing this long wail of a horn in the distance. In my half conscious state, I thought "it's a train". But the wailing continued and eventually I woke enough to realize it was someone leaning on the horn of their car at about 4am. Who knows why they felt this was necessary. At least it was off in the distance. And I was able to float in and out of a doze. Each time that I fell asleep, I kept thinking it was a train - only to wake enough to realize it was a car.

As I lay there pondering during one of my wakeful moments I had a realization: They have NO TRAINS here. Don't ask me why it took 18 months for me to realize. No WONDER the semi trucks are lined up along the freeways like freight trains. They ARE the freight trains.

Boy, it made me realize what a logistical nightmare has been created by their lack of freight trains. Try to imagine if each and every car on a freight train was instead a semi truck on the freeway. Every. Single. freight car. Think of how dangerous it would be to have the entire right lane (or right 2 lanes on extra wide freeways) dedicated to freight trucks. Think of how tricky it would be to figure out how to cut into a queue of slow-moving trucks to find your exit. Or to enter into a freeway to a slow moving lane and try to zip quickly into the lane for cars so you can speed up. Think of how much this would clog up all traffic.

You have now imagined traffic on the main freeways of Dubai. They've actually made laws that limit the hours truck can drive on the freeway (during the week it's only during nighttime hours). They've actually built a huge by-pass WAYYY out in the sand that trucks can use during the daytime hours. Why don't they build railroads? It makes so much sense.