The UAE has gone on to complete its work on the national railway network, which is expected to serve as a major part of the worldwide supply network. Notably, the UAE National Rail Network’s main line spreads from Ghuweifat, which happens to be on the border of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, to Fujairah.
Since 2016, stage one of the national railway network has been functioning at its full potential. Stage two of the project began in early 2020. These happen to be a part of the infrastructure investment initiatives that have been actively undertaken in the UAE.
As per the UAE’s national railway network, Etihad Rail, 25 consultants, 11 contractors, and 28000 specialists happened to be involved in the project, which went on to get 40,000 approvals from around 180 government agencies. The construction of 593 bridges and crossings of all types, in addition to nine tunnels with a length of 6.5 km., was part of the project.
With a capacity of 60 mn tonnes of goods every year and more than 1000 multi-purpose vehicles, the modern freight train fleet of the region consists of 38 locomotives that have the capability of running at a speed of 120 km/h.
Operating under the European ETCS level 2 signalling system, the trains happen to be designed to function under the climatic conditions, geographic nature, high temperatures, as well as humidity that exist in the GCC region.
The trains shall link four key ports and cover seven logistics centres all throughout the country so as to serve trains as well as related businesses. The network happens to feature various charging stations in the Industrial City of Abu Dhabi: Ruwais, Khalifa Port, Jebel Ali Port, Dubai Industrial City, Al Ghail, as well as Fujairah Port.
Besides this, the network will also help investors as well as customers ship numerous kinds of goods, such as raw steel, limestone, petrochemicals, building materials, cement, industrial as well as domestic waste, food commodities, general cargo, and aluminium.
Sheikh Theyab bin Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the chairman of Etihad Rail, said that Emirati talents, with the help of the leadership of the UAE, have turned the dream of the founding fathers into a reality. He went to add, thanks to them, they won the bet and thereby succeeded in coming up with a rail network with international specifications that goes on to extend almost 900 km. throughout the Emirates.
