SAUDI Railways Organisation (SRO) has awarded a Euros 6.74bn contract to Al-Shoula, a Spanish-Saudi consortium, to equip, operate and maintain for 12 years the 450km Haramain high-speed line currently under construction between Mecca, Jeddah and Medina.

 

Under the contract, Talgo will supply a fleet of 35 series 350 El Pato trains, with an option for another 23 trains. Talgo's part of the contract is worth Euros 1.6bn, which would rise to Euros 2.4bn if the option is exercised. Each train will have two power cars and 12 trailers, and the line is expected to carry between 166,000 and 180,000 passengers per day.

 

The railway, which will be designed for 300km/h operation, will be equipped with ERTMS Level 2 supplied by Invensys Rail's Dimetronic subsidiary. This includes CTC, electronic interlockings, LED lineside signals, train detection, and on-board ETCS.
Indra will be responsible for traffic management, telecommunications, fare collection and security. The railway will be electrified at 25kV ac.

 

Al-Shoula is 88% Spanish and 12% Saudi. Spain's national train operator, Renfe, has the largest stake in the Spanish part with a 26.9% shareholding, followed by Adif, Spain's infrastructure manager, with 21.5%, and Talgo with 17.5%. The remaining 34.1% is held by other Spanish companies including Dimetronic, Indra and Ineco. There are two companies in the Saudi part of Al-Shoula: Al-Shoula itself and Al-Rosan.

 

The tender process to build and equip the Haramain high-speed line was launched in October 2006. Five groups from Spain, France, Germany, China and Korea were pre-qualified to equip the railway, with just the Spanish and French groups going through to the final stage.