A Saudi-French-Chinese consortium has bagged the $1.8 billion civil works contract for the Makkah -Medina high speed railway, a project official said on Saturday. The Al-Rajhi construction group, together with France's Alstom,and China Railway Engineering won the 6.8 billion riyal ($1.8 billion) contract, an official of the Saudi Railways Organisation told AFP.
The civil works contract is the first stage of a $6 billion plan to build a 444 km high-speed railroad, linking the two holy cities-- Makkah and Medina--through the Red Sea port city of Jeddah. The project aims to ferry hundreds of thousands of pilgrims to Makkah and Medina at speeds reaching 360 km per hour.