International Railway Journal - October 2008 - (Page 22) Middle East 2h 30min and will relieve the saturated highway. In addition to the pilgrim traffic, the line will accommodate the increasing number of commuters travelling the 70km between Jeddah and Mecca. Six consortia have prequalified for the contract to build the line, which is due to open in 2013. Another project aimed at easing the transport of the 2.5 million pilgrims that visit the city each year is the Mecca Al Masher Al Mugaddassah elevated metro line. Four prequalified consortia including Al Harbi Group, Binladin, Mabani and Saudi Oger have been shortlisted for the design and build contract to construct the 17.6km line, which will have 10 stations and will be electrified at 1.5kV dc. The alignment for the route passes close to some of the most sacred sites in the Islamic world, and therefore represents a significant engineering challenge to the preferred bidder in terms of station design and crowd dynamics. IRJ IRJ would like to thank Mr Bassam Mansour, rail group director with Bovis Lend Lease International, and SNCF International for their assistance in compiling this article. CAF, Spain, recently won a contract to supply eight 200km/h diesel trains to Saudi Railways Organisation. Gulf region. The 945km Landbridge will connect the capital Riyadh in the east with the port of Jeddah in the west, providing the first rail link between the Gulf and the Red Sea. The Tarabot consortium, which comprises Asciano, Australia, and seven Saudi companies has been selected by the Saudi government as preferred bidder for the $US 6.6 billion project, which also includes upgrading the existing Riyadh Dammam line. The railway will mainly be used by container and bulk freight trains. Asciano has a 5% equity stake in the Tarabot consortium, but holds an 80% share in the concession that will build, own, operate, and transfer the network. The deal will be finalised by the second quarter of 2009 and construction will begin soon afterwards. The railway will take around three years to build. The 400km Mecca-Medina Rail Link (MMRL) will be the Middle East’s first high-speed railway, with a commercial speed of 320km/h. The double-track line will cut the current 10h bus journey between the two holy cities to just 翥荃芾莆苆 22 IRJ October 2008 http://www.dsco-group.com
For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.