NATIONAL RAILWAY NETWORK

In July 2013, in Muscat, at the Ministry of Transport and Communications of Oman Italferr signed a contract with the Oman Rail Company for the preliminary design of the entire railway network of the Sultanate of Oman. The new double-track freight and passenger lines are about 2,244 km long and connect the northern Omani border with the United Arab Emirates and the capital Muscat, and the southern part of the country with the port of Al Duqm and Salalah and the southern border with Yemen.

Activities included artwork, maintenance facilities, stations, signalling and TLC systems as well as the definition of technical specifications for manufacturers, including those for rolling stock.

Italferr also developed all activities related to the environmental impact assessment, obtaining the relevant approval from the competent ministry, and managing relations with all stakeholders involved by the railway, up to project approval.

As part of the same contract, Italferr, in collaboration with the faculty of engineering at Rome's "La Sapienza" University, carried out a 2-year training course for the transfer of specialized technical know-how to groups of young Omani engineers who will hold future managerial positions in the national railway company Oman Rail.

Oman's national railway is set to be one of the central elements in the modernisation of the sultanate's transportation and goods distribution system. The main freight flows involve containers between ports and intermodal hubs, raw materials from ports to industrial centers, and the export of raw materials and semi-finished goods to countries of the Arabian Peninsula.

The work has been completed.