Hanoi (VNA) – Minister of Transport Nguyen Van The has requested the railway management board towork closely with contractors to put Cat Linh-Ha Dong elevated railway intotrial operation in August.
Hanoi’s first elevated railway line was previously scheduled for a test run inSeptember.
At a recent meeting to assess the project, Minister The said the trialoperation was an important stage to check and ensure safe operation of thesystem before it is put into commercial operation.
He said that a European consultancy firm was evaluating the safety of the skytrain system following the design standards.
The project was also previously scheduled for a test run in 2016, but that was delayedto late 2018.
The Cat Linh – HaDong railway project has total adjusted investment of more than 20 trillion VND(886 million USD) sourced from official development assistance loans fromChina.
The 13 kilometre CatLinh-Ha Dong urban elevated railway will have 12 stations and one depot area.The railway is set to operate trains with carrier frequency of every twominutes and a maximum speed of 80 kilometres per hour.
Construction on theproject was meant to start in 2008 but was delayed until October 2011. The linewas originally expected to start running in November 2013. -VNA