Rail boss slams construction delays and standards

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By Staff  http://www.constructionweekonline.com/

Saudi Arabia’s Transport Minister says work on the high-speed Haramain Railway is substandard, construction slow – and has demanded a company in the Spanish-led consortium behind the project come up with plans to compensate for delays in the project.

Abdullah Al-Muqbel, who is also chairman of the Saudi Railways Organisation (SRO), inspected the project on Saturday and was referring to the failure to construct a central workshop for servicing in Madinah. The company was not named.

Al-Muqdel asked the company to prepare an alternative plan to compensate for the delay in construction and said this plan should be submitted to SRO’s management for approval within 24 hours. He also asked the company to choose another contractor to implement the project without any delay.

Al-Muqdel told the consortium, which is in charge of executing the third phase of the project, to start preparing the station at King Abdullah Economic City (KAEC) in Rabigh for operations, and ordered that work work on the main crossings on the Makkah-Jeddah Expressway be completed before Ramadan and on all other crossings before Haj. More info