DHL to deliver Bombardier trains for Riyadh metro

German logistics firm Deutsche Post’s DHL will deliver 47 Bombardier train sets from the production site in Sahagun, Mexico, to Saudi Arabia for Riyadh’s new metro line.

Each train will be shipped by DHL’s global forwarding division via the ocean freight network, and will arrive at Saudi Arabian port of Dammam “according to the requested schedule,” Nikola Hagleitner, CEO of industrial projects at DHL Global Forwarding, told Argaam.

DHL will also undertake the last-mile delivery of the train sets to the Arriyadh Development Authority. “The cargo will be delivered by road transportation from the port of Dammam to the agreed delivery point,” she said.

Hagleitner said the train sets will be shipped in phases. She did not disclose if the cargo had been dispatched from Mexico.

The shipment is part of the multi-year forwarding agreement between Bombardier Transportation and DHL, and the first trains under the agreement arrived in Riyadh towards the end of 2016.

“With the first of our Riyadh Metro trains arriving on-time and without any quality issues in Riyadh late last year, we have no doubts that DHL will continue to replicate these results for the rest of the partnership,” a spokesperson from Bombardier Transportation said in a statement last week.

The trains will be deployed on Riyadh’s Metro Line 3, currently under construction.

The six-line metro system in Riyadh spans a total length of 176 kilometers and includes 85 stations. By the end of 2016, about 45 percent of the project construction was complete.

Earlier this month, France-based Alstom Co. delivered to Arriyadh Development Authority (ADA) the first metro train set.

Alstom, which is part of the FAST consortium, is in charge of supplying a full integrated metro system for lines 4, 5 and 6 (or Yellow, Green, and Purple lines).

Write to Nadeshda Zareen at nadeshda.zareen@argaamplus.com