Saudi Railways Organization
The railway in Saudi Arabia is today (English: Saudi Railway Organization [ SRO ] ) by the Saudi Railway Administration operated.
History
The first railway on the territory of modern Saudi Arabia was the Hedschasbahn. It was built there, as the territory still belonged to the Ottoman Empire. They came from the north of Damascus, ended in Medina and was in this stretch from 1908 to about 1926 with a major interruption during World War II in operation.
Today's network of railways in Saudi Arabia was established in 1947 as a railway infrastructure of Saudi Aramco Petroleum Company to transport equipment for the oil production and oil products between the Persian Gulf and Dhahran. Was opened the route on 20 October 1951. Initially Aramco operated the route but it was taken into public ownership itself in 1968. Since then, the route was extended to Riyadh, built a parallel rail infrastructure for passenger transport in the 1980s, it came to the reception building served in passenger places in Riyadh and a container terminal.
Route network
Today's network is operated with diesel vehicles and consists of two single-track main lines to standard gauge, the traffic between the capital Riyadh and the port city of Dammam serve mainly in the Persian Gulf:
- Route 1: Dammam - Abqaiq - Hofuf - Riyadh, 449 km, passenger transport. The route runs through a scenic interesting area and crosses a sandy desert. The travel time is about 4 ½ hours. In the train snacks are served and shown videos.
- Route 2: Dammam - Abqaiq - Hofuf - Harad -al- Chardsch -Riyadh 700 km, freight
- In addition, some short spur routes and the port railway Dammam include (12,9 km) to the rail network.
Route 1 and 2 run between Dammam and Al Mansurah to 139 km parallel. It is separate infrastructures that are each operated as a separate track. The total length of the network is almost 1100 km, if this parallel route is ignored.
Technology
Used rails of the type UIC 60 The point machines are protected from sand by enclosures. The technical equipment and the systems that ensured reliability were simple until recently quite. There was neither timely nor command signals. Since June 2009, but it has a modern stand A consortium of Siemens Transportation Systems and the Saudi Arabian Nour Communications Company has been working on this modernization since 2005. These include the features of the web with modern signaling systems with block locations, the equipment of 15 level crossings with CCTV and the introduction of ETCS level 1 due to the extreme weather conditions, the ETCS beacons special sun protection. The system is controlled by ten Simis interlockings from Siemens. The control center with four control stations located in Dammam. In addition, GSM -R was introduced for control and radio communications. The total cost amounted to the equivalent of 91 million euros. With the commissioning of the system the railroad was in Saudi Arabia for the first time operating rules.
Traffic
The passenger trains offer three different classes of cars. These are two classes for men and one for women only strictly separate. In 2008, 1.1 million passengers and 3.5 million tonnes of goods were transported (especially in containers ). 2011 were built by Construcciones y Auxiliar de Ferrocarriles new diesel railcars for the Saudi Arabian Railway.
Projects
The following projects for network expansion exist:
Furthermore, there are traffic- strategic considerations - under the current political conditions but can not be realized - for a series on Israel to Egypt.