Ethiopian Railways Corporation to start test run on the Awash Woldiya Hara Gebeya Railway

Tigrai Online, June 30, 2017

Test running on the first phase of the Awash – Woldiya/Hara Gebeya Railway is set to start by the end of August 2017, Ethiopian Railways Corporation has announced on its Face book page.

A Turkish firm Yapı Merkezi  is building the 389 route-km electrified standard gauge line from Awash to  Woldiya for a US$1.7 billion. This line will connect with the Djibouti – Addis Ababa line which started operating last year. This section of the project is 54% completed by June 2017 the Ethiopian Railways Corporation reported. The route passes through the beautiful Ethiopian Highlands where the mountains can reach an altitude of 2122 meters and has six tunnels. Railway track is laid on 250 km of the 391 km route.

The 220 km Hara Gebeya to Mek’ele line which continues north to Tigrai State is being built by China Communications Construction Co., a Chinese construction company. This route which is separate from the previous one will cost US$1·5 billion. Construction on this section of the project commenced in February 2015, and it is now 46% complete.

Ethiopia is building hundreds of mega projects simultaneously costing billions of dollars mainly in the transportation, energy generation, housing, education, and health sector.

Recently the World Bank announced Ethiopia is the number one fastest growing economy in the world and it indicted the growth of the country powered by its public mega projects.