Ethiopia: Railway to Be Completed Next Month

Addis Ababa’s metro rail system being constructed by the Chinese is expected to be completed in the coming month, head of the project explained.

According to Reuters, the project which is being undertaken by the China Railway Engineering Corporation (CREC) is mostly financed by a loan from China’s Exim Bank.

Ethiopia is also constructing a new railway that links it with Djibouti and also intends to finish a total of 5,000 kilometer railway by 2020. In addition to this, it has plans to treble the size of the road network from 50,000 Kilometers by the coming year.

Reuters noted the rail system is going to transform the lives of capital’s residents, which it referred as ones that wait in long queues before they are crammed onto buses and minivans.

According to the project manager Behailu Sintayehu, 80 percent of the track laying task has been completed and the rest will be completed by the end of next month. "We believe that it will have a great impact in alleviating the problem of transportation in the city," Behailu added.

There are two lines dividing Addis Ababa, north-south and east-west, and they stretch for a total of 32 Kilometers. There are going to be 39 stations in underground and overground stations.

Trial phase is going to be carried out by CREC in up to three months time. It is after this the teams will decide when to launch the system, Ethiopian Railway Corporation's spokesman Dereje Tefera said.

The project was started three years ago on January 2012.

Source: Reuters Africa