One of the six passenger trains supplied by CAF reached 136km/h in the Hail area on July 13 as testing ramps up to reach the maximum speed of 200km/h.
SAR plans to start with a daily service from Riyadh to Qassim with an intermediate stop at Mujamma'ah and a journey time of just over 2 hours. The day service will eventually be extended north to Hail, while an overnight service will link Riyadh with Qassim, Hail, Al-Jouf and Al-Qurrayat, a distance of 1250km.
CAF is supplying four day trains and two overnight trains under a contract worth in excess of €400m, and the first train was handed over to SAR in Riyadh in September 2015.
Each 280m-long day train comprises a diesel power car at each end and nine intermediate coaches seating 444 passengers, while the night trains have a similar formation but with 13 intermediate coaches. The trains have USB mobile phone chargers, Wi-Fi, special seats to provide privacy for passengers, and a restaurant car.
SAR began operating phosphate trains in 2011 from Al Jalamid to refining plants at the Arabian Gulf port of Ras Al-Khair, and introduced bauxite trains in May 2014 between Al-Baeetha mine near Qassim and an aluminium smelter at Ras Al-Khair.
