OREANDA-NEWS. December 09, 2009. During his visit RZD President Vladimir Yakunin met with Chairman of Libyan Railways Said Mohammed Rashid, and discussed railway cooperation between the two countries, in particular a project to build a modern high-speed line between Sirt and Benghazi, reported the press-centre of RZD.

"When the Libyan leadership declared its goal of making the country a railway power, Russian Railways offered to use its wealth of experience to realize this project. For RZD, it is a great honour to build a railway in Libya. To accomplish this, the Russian company will use modern track equipment and the latest technology", Vladimir Yakunin said.

The RZD president noted that Russian railway workers have laid over 160 000 kilometers of track over the course of their history, which goes back more than 170 years. More often than not, these routes have been created amid the harshest of natural and climatic conditions – through tundra and desert, across mountainous areas and the broadest rivers.

Since the contract came into force in December 2008, work has been started on construction, and in line with the timetable, all of the work – from planning to completion of each part, and the launch of facilities - will take four years. Currently, the construction of the housing part of the main production base is nearing completion – the workers’ settlement at the Ras Lanuf station, to accommodate over 400 people. Several dozen items of heavy construction and railway equipment are already in Libya: a tracklaying machine, flat wagons, a crane with lifting power of 100 tons, several road rollers, and other equipment. The delivery of various kinds of track equipment is actively ongoing.
 
*****
On 17 April 2008 in Tripoli, Russian Railways President Vladimir Yakunin and Chairman of Libyan Railways Said Mohammed Rashid signed a contract to build a section of the Sirt-Benghazi rail line. The project cost is 2.2 billion euros. The essence of the Sirt-Benghazi project is to build a modern high-speed two-track rail line of over 550 km, with track gauge of 1435 mm, which will run along the Mediterranean coast and link the main cities of Libya, and in the future become a part of the international transport corridor of North Africa.

In the first stage of the project, diesel locomotives will be used with a speed of up to 160 km/h, and in the second stage, after track electrification and a transition to electric locomotives, the speed will rise to 250 km/h. This will make Libya not just a railway power, but put it in the group of countries with high-speed railways. Under this project, 30 overhead railway crossings and 23 flyover roads will be built, along with six major stations and 24 minor stations. A total of 3 500 workers from Libya and Russia will be involved in constructing the route, including 289 engineers, using 200 more than items of machinery, including heavy digging equipment and specialized track equipment.