Ho Chi Minh City Metro receives more trains from Japan
Ho Chi Minh City’s first metro line receives more trains from Japan. The metro line will be between Ben Thanh and Suoi Tien.
Carriages for the last two trains, No. 16 and 17, will be transported to Long Binh depot in HCM City’s Thu Duc city within the early part of May.
The line will use three-carriage trains made in Japan. Each train, 61.5 metres long, is able to carry 930 passengers. The trains will run at 110km per hour on elevated sections and 80km per hour underground.
Nguyen Quoc Hien, Deputy Head of the HCM City Management Authority for Urban Railways, said the arrival of the last trains marks the completion of import to move to a new phase of trial runs. Trial runs will initially begin at the Long Binh depot.
Currently, about 90.5 percent of the metro line project is complete. However, the remaining 10 percent of the train track has taken longer than previous estimates.
Contractors and relevant units have pledged to make the utmost efforts to complete the construction. They aim to put the metro train line into operation by 2023. This is in conjunction with the celebration of the 50th founding anniversary of Vietnam-Japan diplomatic ties.
Metro Line No. 1, nearly 20km long, has a total investment of over 43.7 trillion VND (1.9 billion USD) and consists of three underground stations and 11 over-ground platforms. Initially, the construction completion date was late 2022. Plans to run it commercially in 2022. However, delays came about when the Covid-19 pandemic arrived.
The government of Vietnam first mooted the idea of metro trains in Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi in 2001. Construction on the Ho Chi Minh Metro began in late 2012. The plan was for 10 years with a budget of USD 1.5 billion. However, the budget has ballooned to USD 2.3 billion. Experts comment that the budget is still moderate and the delay is negligible. Ticket prices will begin at USD 0.10 which is currently lower than existing bus fares.
