MAKKAH — Work on only 10 km of track has to be completed before the Haramain high-speed train will be ready for operation, according to the project's supervisor Bassam Ghulam. He said during a presentation at the Makkah Chamber of Commerce and Industry on Monday that work has to be completed on seven kilometers of track from the side of Al-Iskan neighborhood in Makkah and three in Jeddah's Al-Harazat district. During the first phase of its operation, which will continue for 12 years, the train is expected to transport about 1.2 billion passengers at the rate of 100 million every year, said Ghulam. "At the outset of its operation, the train is expected to transport between 11,400-12,400 passengers an hour," he said. When it becomes fully operational, the train will transport 19,100 passengers an hour between Jeddah and Makkah, 3,800 between Makkah and Madinah and 8,000 between Rabigh and Madinah. "The train will serve more than two million pilgrims every year," he added. "As many as 127 out of 138 bridges have been built and 845 crossings completed to drain rainwater," said Ghulam. The supervisor said the train will cover the distance between Jeddah and Makkah in less than 21 minutes, between Makkah and Rabigh in an hour and between Makkah and Madinah in two hours. Due to safety measures, the maximum speed of the train per hour will not exceed 300 km. Ghulam said the Jeddah part of the project was the most difficult because of the Jeddah-Makkah Expressway which is the most crowded.
