 The FAST Consortium working on three of the six lines of the Riyadh Metro authority has completed excavation works for Line 5 (the Green Line) of the ArRiyadh Development Authority project.
The Green Line runs underground along the length of King Abdulaziz Road, a main artery through the city of Riyadh, with 13km of bored tunnel, 11 underground stations and transfer stations with the Red and Blue lines.
FAST deployed two 2,000t Herrenknecht TBMs, each 105m-long and 19m in diameter to excavate the bedrock beneath Riyadh for the fully subterranean line.
The San’ah TBM is thus the second of the consortium’s TBMs to complete its excavation works out of a total of seven TBMs working across the Riyadh Metro project.
In an event marking the completion of the excavation work and the start of track works, French rail system manufacturer and FAST company Alstom also unveiled a mock-up of its Metropolis trains bound for FAST’s three lines. Alstom’s first work on site will be laying of track for an at-grade section of Line 4 (Yellow).
The Metropolis trains for the Riyadh Metro Project are 36m long and have two cars per set. The trains are driverless and can handle slopes with a 6% incline. Alstom will supply 69 trains, as well as Urbalis signalling and Hesop energy recovery systems.
In all, FAST is delivering 22km of underground tunnel, 33km of viaducts and 9km of rail line at-grade across Lines 4, 5 and 6.
At their peak, the FAST TBMs working on Line 5 removed 35m/day — outstripping the work on all other lines and the Doha Metro.
For more coverage of the TBM operations work behind line 5 of the Riyadh Metro, click here to read PMV Middle East’s in-depth feature on the subject, produced with the support of FAST and ArRiyadh Development Authority.
