Railways Africa

Twelve firms are bidding for a contract to provide preliminary design consultancy services in the developing of a national rail network in Oman. The successful contender is to be responsible for the provisional design of the complete infrastructure and all systems involved in constructing the Sultanate’s new proposed 1,061km railway. Consultancies based in Spain and [...]

Only two working passenger trains mean reconstruction of Iraq’s railways – after years of war – have a long way to go. Shortage of rolling stock results in minimal revenue, which is needed to pay staff wages, and there is nothing to contribute towards revamping the system. Plans to revive the railway envisage Iraq serving [...]

The first two of seven Electro-Motive Diesel locomotives for the United Arab Enirates (UAE) arrived recently from the USA at the port of Mussafah. The units are to be moved to Etihad Rail’s site at Mirfa in the Western Region, to join the consignment of wagons delivered in December 2012. Etihad Rail – the developer [...]

Kazakhstan Temir Zholy (KTZ – the Kazakhstan State Railways) has signed a contract worth €90 million with joint venture KazElectroPrivod – equally owned by Alstom and its Kazakh partner Kamkor – for the supply of 10,000 point machines over ten years from 2013. The 50/50 joint venture was set up In January 2013 specifically for [...]

Etihad Rail has secured a five-year loan of $US1.28 billion from a consortium of banks for Phase I of its ambitious, new-from-scratch rail project, Gulf News reports. According to Etihad Rail, the five-year loan is to be financed on a “club deal basis” by the National Bank of Abu Dhabi PJSC (Nbad), the Bank of [...]

In terms of a project managed by Oman’s ministry of transport and communications, a preliminary design tender for the country’s $US1.5 billion railway has been floated. The network is to be linked to the proposed Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) rail system from Kuwait to Muscat, onward to Salalah and eventually to Yemen. The tender invites [...]

The Saudi Arabian government has commissioned US-based Fluor Corporation to provide management consultancy on the $US7 billion Riyadh-Jeddah railway project. Fluor is to oversee the performance of the contractors as well as experimental operation over a period of 84 months. The state-owned Public Investment Fund (PIF) will fund the project which is to be supervised [...]

Israel Railways (IR) is planning to electrify its main lines. An invitation to prequalify was issued on 15 October for a tender to design, erect, commission, and maintain electrification covering 420km of the existing network. The deadline for submissions is 31 December 2012. New lines currently under construction, eg Tel Aviv-Kfar Sava (30km) and Acre-Carmiel [...]

ABB is to design, supply, instal and commission two identical static var compensators (SVCs) so that the power grid remains stable when Saudi Arabia’s Haramain high-speed rail service comes into operation. The country’s grid has a large number of induction-motor air-conditioner loads giving rise to cvoltage dips and depressions unless properly addressed. The SVCs, each [...]

Saudi Arabia’s new North-South Railway is already operational in places, although full commercial freight service is not expected before 2013, and that for passengers not until 2014. The Saudi Technical & Vocational Training Corporation is to establish a training facility with capacity of up to 1,000 students for staff working on the North-South Railway. It [...]