UAE Unveils First Passenger Railway Stations

UAE Reveals Locations of First Passenger Railway Stations

The locations of Etihad Rail’s regular speed passenger stations in Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Fujairah can be revealed for the first time.

Specific positions of each station:

Dubai: Behind Jumeirah Golf Estates Metro Station on Red Line
ABU DHABI: Between Dalma Mall and Musafa Bus Station, near Phoenix Hospital, on the pipeline route that separates Musafa Industrial Area and Mohammed Bin Zayed City.
Fujairah: Parallel to Al-Hilal Street within the Al-Hilal City development
The three-elevation stations are being built under a design and construction contract by China Railway International Group with China Southwest Architectural Design and Research Institute (CSWADI) and local Zhouzi Consulting Engineers and Design Consultants.

Passenger hubs
These stations, along with Sharjah University Station, will be the main passenger hub of the conventional high-speed railway, which will run at a speed of 200 kilometers per hour (km/h) along the existing 1,200 km long Etihad Rail freight line. It runs between Al-Sila in the west and Fujairah in the east.

While the planned Fujairah station sits on the existing track, the Dubai and Abu Dhabi stations are on two specially constructed spur lines to serve them.

Opposite Dubai Investment Park, it splits from the spur line serving Jebel Ali Port at Al-Yalais Street and goes to Jumeirah Golf Estates Metro Station at the intersection of Al-Yalais Street and Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed Road. From there it will be connected to the Dubai Metro Red Line.

The Abu Dhabi station will split from the main line between two interchanges connecting Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al-Nahyan International Road with Al-Rawda Road and Al-Umnia Street.

Etihad Rail subsidiary National Infrastructure Construction Company (NICC) and its subsidiary National Projects and Construction (NPC) are constructing two dedicated spur lines for the two stations.

The spur line, which will connect the planned Sharjah University station to the main line, is being built under a separate contract awarded in March to local firm TriStar Engineering & Construction.

A number of smaller passenger stations are planned at grade level on the network to serve regional transport.

Based in the US, Jacobs provides total engineering consulting and construction services to clients.

Etihad Rail has never disclosed the exact locations of the three major stations in the regular speed plan. However, as work on the spur lines and station buildings continues, there is now clear evidence of their location. Construction is expected to take 18-24 months.

High speed
The conventional high-speed passenger railway is a precursor to the planned high-speed railway connecting the hubs of Abu Dhabi and Dubai using the existing freight network. Soil testing and preliminary work on the multi-million dollar project have already begun, while contractors have been asked to confirm joint venture teams by the end of August.

The basic definition of high speed railway is lines capable of running at a speed of more than 250 km per hour. Therefore, most of the new dedicated line is expected to be elevated or underground, and will be as straight as possible, especially if its stations are located in the middle of two cities.

Even if work begins immediately, experience with other high-speed rail projects around the world suggests that the project is unlikely to be fully operational until at least 2030.