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Morocco plans Arab worlds first high-speed train

RABAT - Work on the Arab worlds first high-speed train -- stretching from the Mediterranean to the door of the Sahara desert -- could begin next year, the head of Moroccos rail company said. The trains would travel at up to 300 kilometres (186 miles) per hour, slashing times from Tangier in the north via Marrakesh to Agadir in the south, and from Casablanca on the Atlantic to Oujda on the Algerian border.

Marrakesh to Tangier in two and a half hours -- its as if the countrys shrinking, rail operator ONCFs managing director Mohamed Rabie Khlie told Reuters in an interview. A high-speed rail network will put us in the rail industrys big league.

If the plans are approved, the 1,500 kilometres of track may take until 2030 to complete at a cost of around 25 billion dirhams ($2.87 billion), Khlie said. Once financing for the new lines is sealed, engineering work could begin in the second half of 2007, Khlie said.

And Khlie said plans mooted years ago for a tunnel from Europe to Africa across the strait of Gibraltar were still on course, meaning trains may one day travel direct from Madrid to Marrakesh. A Moroccan-Spanish committee is working very hard on this issue and its going very well, he said. We feel quite a clear willingness on the Spanish side to push things forward.
Posted by: Steve White 2006-09-16

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