DAMMAM: The Saudi Railway Organization (SRO) is currently exploring the viability of metro rail services in the holy cities of Makkah and Madinah, an official said after a meeting of the board of directors of SRO in Dammam on Wednesday.
The SRO will issue the licenses for the train services on the newly built Northern Railway to SAR (Saudi Arabian Railway Co.), SRO President Abdul Aziz Al-Hokail said.
Minister of Transport Jabara Al-Seraisry, who is also chairman of the SRO's board of directors, chaired the meeting.
The SRO's achievements in 2011 included granting of license for a campus railway project to the Princess Noura University in Riyadh, Al-Hokail said.
The meeting also reviewed the progress of the first phase of the Haramain High Speed Rail Project (HHSRP) involving civil works.
More than 45 bridges, including the Pilgrim Lounge Bridge and the Air Base Bridge, on the HHSRP have been completed while work on 154 other bridges are under way. More than 500 flood drainage culverts have also been constructed, he said.
The restructuring of bridges and relocation of utility installations on the Haramain Expressway, parallel to the HHSRP, is a challenging task, Al-Hokail noted.
Al-Hokail said work to construct railway stations for HHRSP is also progressing according to schedule.
He said the recently signed second phase of HHSRP included the import of railway lines, signals, communication and electrification systems apart from engines and maintenance equipment.
Minister of Finance Ibrahim Al-Assaf and Al-Seraisry signed a SR30.815 billion contract with a Saudi-Spanish consortium for implementing the second phase of HHSRP in Riyadh on Jan 15. Al-Shoula Co. represented the Saudi-Spanish Consortium.
Al-Hokail said SRO is also preparing to invite contracts for the Land Bridge to connect the Jeddah Islamic Port with the Dammam Port in addition to a link line to the land bridge from Yanbu. The total length of the line will be 1,300 km. There is also a study under way for a link of the land bridge with King Abdullah industrial port in Rabigh.
He added that budget allocations for the current year stressed development of rail projects of high performance with advanced safety systems and construction of alternative tracks in Ahsa apart from training the national work force to undertake railway responsibilities.
Al-Seraisry said on an earlier occasion that the Saudi railway network is going through a huge expansion program. The expansion programs currently being implemented, such as the North-South Rail that is being implemented by SAR consists of two branches, one for the transportation of minerals to the manufacturing centers in Ras Al-Khair port in the Gulf and the other for passenger and freight service, which starts from the border of Jordan, passes through several areas to link up with the Riyadh-Dammam Railway, the land bridge project between Riyadh and Jeddah as well as the GCC Railway.
© Arab News 2012
