The Vietnam Register (VR) announced that it had issued temporary registration certificates for 13 trains of the long-delayed Cat Linh-Ha Dong urban railway project.
A train of the Cat Linh-Ha Dong urban railway project (Photo: VNA)
Hanoi (VNA) - The Vietnam Register (VR) announced that it had issuedtemporary registration certificates for 13 trains of the long-delayed CatLinh-Ha Dong urban railway project.
Thecertificates were issued to run a trial operation for the whole system, Hanoi'sfirst urban railway project that has been running behind schedule for years andsuffering from enormous cost overruns.
The Statequality control agency said that the assessment of the trains’ quality wascommenced in September last year and now the inspection was completed.
The officialcertificates will be issued when the trial operation ends and if the system isdeemed safe.
Aspokesperson of the Railway Division under the VR said the trains’ inspectionwas conducted based on national standards, which were regulated by the Ministryof Transport.
The CatLinh-Ha Dong urban railway system has the total length of more than 13km, runningon an overground viaduct, has 12 stations and 13 trains. Each train has fourcarriages and can transport 960 passengers.
Constructionon the railway started in 2008 and was initially expected to be completed in2013 but has faced several delays.
The MoT isthe investor of the project but the Hanoi People’s Committee is responsible formanaging, operating and maintaining the system. The China Railway No 6Group Ltd Co is the contractor of the project.
Tang Hong,representative of the project’s general contractor, said that last month, thecontractor scheduled a trial run of the whole system in 20 days.
But afterfive days, the railway project management board under the transport ministryasked the contractor to complete several procedures, so the trial run went to ahalt.
The trialrun will resume soon after receiving approval from the board.
Chargéd'affaires of the Chinese Embassy in Vietnam Yin Haihong in a recent meetinghas urged the Vietnamese authorities and the third-party quality assessor – theFrance-based consulting firm Apave-Certifier-Tricc consortium (ACT) – toswiftly complete the quality assessment of the entire project so that it couldstart commercial runs soon./.
The Ministry of Transport has requested the Chinese contractor of Cat Linh-Ha Dong metro line in Hanoi to commit a specific deadline when the project will be finished.
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A train of the Cat Linh-Ha Dong urban railway project (Photo: VNA) 
