On November 15, 2018, Morocco put the country on the map of high-speed rail transport. King Mohammed VI and French President Emmanuel Macron inaugurated the “Al Boraq” service – the first high-speed railway system in Africa.
The new route connects Tangier and Casablanca via Kenitra and Rabat. The journey between the two economic hubs now takes 2 hours and 10 minutes, whereas previously trains covered the distance in around 4 hours and 45 minutes.
320 kilometers per hour on the new section
The high-speed line was built between Tangier and Kenitra and is around 180-186 kilometers long. Trains can reach speeds of up to 320 kilometers per hour on it. After Kenitra, the trains continue toward Rabat and Casablanca along a modernized existing railway line.
For the project, Morocco purchased 12 double-decker trains from the French company “Alstom”. The name “Al Boraq” is associated with the mythical winged creature from Islamic tradition.
“This project has commercial and industrial significance because it is the first of its kind in Africa. It will allow Morocco to master the technology associated with high-speed trains,” then-Moroccan Prime Minister Saadeddine Othmani said at the time, quoted by Reuters.
Project began with Sarkozy in 2011
The foundation stone was laid on September 29, 2011, in Tangier by King Mohammed VI and then-French President Nicolas Sarkozy. The project was part of an agreement between Morocco and France reached in 2007.
There are discrepancies in publicly released estimates of the investment’s value. Arab News, citing Morocco’s state news agency MAP, puts it at 22.9 billion dirhams, or around $2.4 billion. The specialized publication MEED estimates the budget at around €1.8 billion, equivalent to approximately $2.1 billion.
France and Morocco, as well as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates, participated in the financing. French funding and expertise were directed both toward building the infrastructure and toward the trains and technical training.
The official inauguration took place on November 15, while commercial operation of “Al Boraq” began on November 26, 2018. Thus, the project, launched with the symbolic laying of the foundation stone seven years earlier, made Morocco the first African country with a high-speed railway service.
Sources: reutersconnect.com, arabnews.com, meed.com