JEDDAH — Transport Minister Abdullah Al-Muqbel, who is also chairman of the Saudi Railways Organization (SRO), has issued a strong warning to a company in the Spanish consortium responsible for implementing the high-speed Haramain Railway after it did not construct the central workshop for the service in Madinah on time. The minister, who toured the train project on Saturday, said the company's production was “substandard” and its execution of the building construction “slow”. He asked the company to prepare an alternative plan to compensate for the delay in construction and said this plan should be submitted to SRO's management for approval within 24 hours. He also asked the company to choose another contractor to implement the project without any delay. As part of his field tour of the Haramain Railway project and the roads in Madinah, the minister inspected schemes that are currently being executed by the King Khaled third ring road and the construction of a double lane on the Madinah-Hail road. He asked contractors to provide sufficient workers to implement the projects on time. Muqbel also toured the train station in Madinah that has already been completed. He said screens and electronic billboards providing information to passengers should be placed inside the station and along the roads leading to it. He also said that the laying down of rail from the Madinah and Rabigh stations should be expedited. He directed the Spanish consortium, which is in charge of executing the third phase of the project, to start preparing the station at King Abdullah Economic City (KAEC) in Rabigh for operations. The minister also visited the KAEC station and reviewed the available operation and entertainment systems. He concluded his tour by visiting the project's sector in Jeddah and inspected the progress of work in the railway and the road crossings. He directed contractors to complete work on the main crossings on the Makkah-Jeddah Expressway before Ramadan and on all other crossings before Haj.
