RIYADH – The feasibility study of a railway between Saudi Arabia and Bahrain will be completed by the first quarter of 2014, the Saudi Press Agency reported Monday. It is part of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) railway project that will link all GCC countries, as well as the Gulf lines with the national transportation of those countries. The whole project with, over 6,000 km of track, is expected to be ready by 2018 with a budget of $100 billion. The Saudi-Bahraini railway project was proposed in a recent meeting attended by representatives from both countries at the General Organization for the King Fahad Causeway. The participants discussed the selection of the international companies that will conduct the feasibility study. The new railway will help reduce pressure on the current transportation in the area due to the increase of population and enhance trade cooperation among the Gulf countries. The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) governments are embarking on plans to restore Hejaz Railway, the long-distance rail transport in the region and extend it across the Arabian Peninsula. The Gulf states are expected to prepare a detailed engineering design for the $15 billion joint line by end-2013 or mid-2014, an official at the GCC's Secretariat General said. “Hopefully by the beginning of 2018, the railway will start operating,” said Ibrahim Al-Sabti, director of the transportation department at the Riyadh-based secretariat. Currently, the only major rail systems operating in the GCC are a 60-year-old freight and passenger link between Riyadh and the port of Dammam. – Agencies
