SAUDI LANDBRIDGE What: A cargo and passenger railway that will link Jeddah on the Red Sea coast with the ports of Dammam and Jubail on the Gulf coast, via the capital Riyadh. Why: The Saudi Landbridge will primarily be a freight/container line interoperable with the North-South railway link, but will also offer overland passenger transport. Line length: 1065km in total Operating speed: 220km/h (passengers); 120km/h (freight) Capacity: 300 million passengers/ one billion tonnes per year Start date: January 2005 ETA: TBC
UAE OMAN Pilgrims circumambulating the Kaaba in Mecca
SAUDI EXPANDS ITS REACH
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owhere symbolises the GCC’s railway ambitions better than Saudi Arabi, and the Kingdom’s impressive railway expansion project envisages over 3900km of new track over three main projects. In addition to the Saudi Landbridge Project linking the Kingdom’s east with its west, two other major new rail projects are moving closer to fruition. These include the 450km Haramain High-Speed Railway to link Jeddah with Makkah and Madinah, and the 2400km North-South Railway, which is being given priority due to its importance to industrial development. Sponsored by the Public Investment Fund, this line is integral to planned phosphate and bauxite mining projects in the north of the country and will link them with processing plants and smelters on the Gulf coast. The North-South Railway, which starts from Hudaitha in Al-Jouf province and passes by Hail, Qassim and Riyadh provinces, plans to start transporting minerals this year and passengers in 2013, according to officials. “It’s a challenge, but we’re working very hard to meet it,” says Dr Rumaih Al-Rumaih, Deputy Chief Executive of Operations at the Saudi Arabian Railway Company (see interview overleaf). The railway is of strategic importance to the national economy, as the processing of phosphate – which exists in commercial quantities in the resource-rich northern region of the country – will place the Kingdom second internationally in their export, besides enabling advances in the lucrative fertilizer industry. It will also increase oil, agricultural and industrial products transportation, as well as goods and passengers. Al-Rumaih says the railway will transport 15,000 tons of minerals in a single trip, adding that each train will have 100 carriages. He says the trains and carriages for the railway would reach the Kingdom in August and September in order to start the transportation of minerals by the end of this year. “We have already completed 800km of railway out of a total of 1486km,” he says, highlighting progress on the project. Bids for the second phase of the Haramain rail project are due to be submitted in July, including contracts for track, signalling and rolling-stock, and also maintained that the Saudi government would go ahead with plans for the troubled Landbridge project, despite a number of setbacks. The railway, connecting Jeddah on the Red Sea coast with Riyadh, Dammam and Jumail on the Persian Gulf, was initially due to be completed this year but has run into a series of unexpected delays. Al-Rumaih says: “It’s a must. It will be built, it’s only a question of how and when.”
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