JEDDAH — A company warned by Transport Minister Abdullah Al-Muqbil for delaying the construction of a building to house the central workshop of the high-speed Haramain Railway has fired the contractor responsible for implementing the project and replaced it.
The minister, who recently toured the train project, strongly reprimanded the company for the delay in the construction of the building and asked it to change contractors to speed up the construction work.
Informed sources told Okaz/Saudi Gazette, that the company, part of a Spanish consortium, gave strict instructions to the new contractor to complete the job on time and to compensate for the delay that had occurred during the past months.
The minister described the company's production as “substandard” and its work as “slow” and asked it to prepare an alternative plan to compensate for the delay in construction.
The sources did not identify the new contractor but said it has already started working on the project and is determined to finish it on time. They said the train's stations in Madinah and King Abdullah Economic City (KAEC) in Rabigh have been fully completed.
The minister asked the Spanish consortium to operate the high-speed train between Madinah and Rabigh before the end of this year, especially as 370 km of rail has been constructed.
The train, which will join Makkah and Madinah through Jeddah, will cross the distance of 453 km between the two holy cities in about two and a half hours.
The central workshop of the train is located 25 km away from Madinah.
