The North South Railway Line is a 2,750 kilometres (1,709 mi) railway project by Saudi Railway Company (SAR) in Saudi Arabia. Trial operation on 1,392 kilometres (865 mi) long freight part of the project connecting Al-Haditha and Jalamid with new port city Ras Al-Khair was started in May 2011.[2]
An 85 km link is planned which would connect the North-South railway with the port at Jubail.[3]
The project consists of two main railway lines. The first main line is starting from Riyadh towards the northwest of Saudi Arabian peninsular until the city of Al-Haditha near the border with Jordan. The line goes through Majma'a, Qassim, Hail and Al-Jouf along this north-south railway line.
The second main line will start from Al-Jalamid mine which is located in the northeast in the Northern Territory, through Al-Jawf and Hail until arriving at the "AlBaithah railway junction" in the Qassim region. It then headed toward the southeast for processing and export facilities at Ras Al-Khair in the Eastern Province near Jubail.[4] The lines are built piecemeal, some lines are dedicated freight while others are mixed use, still others like SAR Riyadh-Qurayyat Line have a portion which is entirely passenger.
The first six of 25 EMD SD70ACS freight locomotives ordered in April 2009 were handed over to SAR at Port Dammam on 22 August 2010.[5]
Passenger diesel push-pull trains made by Construcciones y Auxiliar de Ferrocarriles arrived in April 2015, and are designed to run at 200 km/h up to 55 degrees C.[6] Each of the SAR trains includes a restaurant car, family zone and a prayer compartment, as well as both seating and sleeping cars. They are expected to run in formations of nine and 13 cars.[6]
