Two more trains for metro reach Saigon from Japan

The cars, measuring 21 meters long and three meters wide and weighing 37 tons each, left Japan on May 1, reached Vung Tau port on Sunday night and onward to Khanh Hoi Port in HCMC’s District 4.

The eight Japanese engineers have come to work on installing the trains on the tracks and testing them. They were tested on arrival and quarantined.

One of the trains will be taken to the Long Binh Depot in District 9 on Tuesday night and installed on the T1 track where the first train, which arrived last October, has already been placed.

The other will be sent to the depot on Wednesday to be placed on another track.

A metro train car from Japan is put on a truck for delivery to Long Binh Depot in HCMC, May 10, 2021. Photo by VnExpress/Quynh Tran.

Doan Van Tuyen, project director at logistics services provider Gemadept Corporation, which is in charge of transporting the metro cars, said the cars would be transported 25 km from the port to the depot by trailer trucks just like last year.

The 19.7-km metro route No.1 from Ben Thanh Market in District 1 to Suoi Tien theme park in District 9 will have 17 Japanese-made trains in total.

The contractor, Japanese conglomerate Hitachi, plans to deliver two more trains each in June and July.

Each train will have a capacity of 930 passengers and travel at up to 110 kph above ground and 80 kph underground.

Work on the much-delayed line, which began in 2012, is almost 85 percent complete.

The city had hoped to begin commercial operations by the end of this year, but the Covid-19 outbreak has delayed it until next year.

It plans to build eight metro lines in all running a total of 220 km.