Minister of Transport and Chairman of Saudi Railways Organization (SRO) Dr. Jabarah Bin Eid Al-Suraisiry is to inspect a new range of modern trains which arrived last week. “Mr. Al-Suraisiry will visit the train station in Dammam next Saturday to view the trains,” said Muhammad Abu Zaid, Director of PR and media at the ministry. The eight trains which have five cars arrived last week and were supplied by a Spanish company. It is hoped the new trains and other SRO expansion projects will boost passenger numbers and cargo freight. Abu Zaid said: “The SRO trains transport 1.3 million passengers and 350,000 containers every year plus two million tons of goods, which require 500,000 trucks to transport them by land.” He said: “The number of containers is expected to reach 700,000, which is around eight million tons, in 2015.” The railway network in the Kingdom is 1412 kilometers long and links Riyadh and the Eastern Province. These two areas contain 40 percent of the population and account for 50 percent of economic activities in the country. The number of passengers who traveled between the regions hit 1,124,000 last year while the number of flights was 10,950. __
