Full Steam Ahead For National Rail

A new steering committee has been formed to construct an 800km national railway network in the UAE by 2013, according to an Abu Dhabi businessman.

Ayman R. Al Makkawy, Vice-President of Abu Dhabi Basic Industries Corporation, told delegates at a railway conference in Dubai on Tuesday that the committee has been holding meetings to help build a new rail line that will link Abu Dhabi to the east coast.

The committee was forged at the behest of the federal government to put in place a single line to carry freight trains and boxcars cross-country – ports on the east coast such as Fujairah are seeing a spurt in container shipments as the UAE grows as a major midway point between Europe and China.

The line would eventually carry passengers.

The new UAE network would run east from the Saudi Arabia border through Abu Dhabi, through Dubai and onward to Ras Al Khaimah, where it would then extend to Ghewaifat and Fujairah.

Talks by the committee have been ongoing for five months and "hopefully, by next July we will have a plan", Al Makkawy said at the Middle East Rail Projects 2007 conference organised by Middle East Economic Digest (MEED) at Park Hyatt.

He added: "We're talking to consultants and financiers" and the committee would like to link the proposed UAE railway line to a 1,000-kilometre GCC Railway Network now being considered by the six Gulf countries.

The World Bank is helping the GCC by giving technical advice on the much larger regional railway line that will see trains eventually travelling from Kuwait through Saudi Arabia and then link to the UAE and onwards towards Oman.

Ramiz Al Assar, a senior transport specialist working with the GCC for the World Bank Group told XPRESS that the cost of building new railway lines in desert conditions at present ranges anywhere from $1 million (Dh3.67 million) to $2 million (Dh7.34 million) per kilometre. Al Assar told the MEED conference delegates that the proposed GCC Railway Network, meanwhile, is moving full steam ahead under a feasibility study.

Al Assar said, "One of the key objectives is to increase the social integration of GCC countries by moving passengers."

On Target:

• Dubai's Dh25.5-billion Metro project is ahead of schedule on several fronts and will meet its September 9, 2009 opening date, delegates at a rail conference heard.
• Abdul Redha Abu Al Hassan, Director of Planning for the Roads and Transport Authority (RTA), said, "We have assurances that this project will meet the target date."
• The RTA is overseeing the construction of two metro routes, the Red Line and Green Line, that when completed will total 74 kilometres in length, he said.
• On the underground tunnelling now under way in Deira and Bur Dubai, the work is on schedule to meet a February 2008 goal.