Morocco government has launched Africa’s fastest train. This train will halve the travelling time between the commercial and industrial hubs of Casablanca and Tangier. The train is two times faster than South Africa’s high-speed railway.
The building of the rail took seven years and incurred a total cost of $2.4 billion, according to the state news agency MAP. It can also travel at 320km (198 miles) per hour.
The country’s government purchased 12 double-decker high-speed trains from Alstom, a French multinational company operating worldwide in rail transport markets and it will be operated by the state-owned railway ONCF. The country is expecting six million passengers to use the new service annually.
In 2017, the French foreign minister, Jean-Yves Le Drian called the railway “the fastest train on the African continent” when he visited Morocco to sign a loan deal between the ONCF and the French Development Agency.
Authorities have said the project is part of a larger rail plan aimed at upgrading Morocco’s transportation system and boosting the economy.
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