Later Years
While the members of the royal family wanted heavenly gardens, splendid cars, and concrete palaces, King Abdulaziz wanted a royal railway from the Persian Gulf to Riyadh and then an extension to Jeddah. The shrine was regarded by all of the advisers living in the country as an old man's folly. Eventually, ARAMCO built the railway, at a cost of $70 million, drawn from the King's oil royalties. It was completed in 1951 and was used commercially after the king's death. It enabled Riyadh to grow into a relatively modern city. But when a paved road was built in 1962, the railway lost its traffic.
Read more about this topic: Ibn Saud
Famous quotes containing the word years:
“After us they’ll fly in hot air balloons, coat styles will change, perhaps they’ll discover a sixth sense and cultivate it, but life will remain the same, a hard life full of secrets, but happy. And a thousand years from now man will still be sighing, “Oh! Life is so hard!” and will still, like now, be afraid of death and not want to die.”
—Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (1860–1904)
“She was beautiful when she died—a hundred years ago.”
—Garrett Fort (1900–1945)