First train for HCM City Metro Line No 1 arrives from Japan

The first train for the HCM City Metro Line No 1 (Ben Thanh-Suoi Tien) arrived in Khanh Hoi Port (Photo: VNA)

HCM City (VNA) - The first train for the HCM City Metro Line No 1 (Ben Thanh-Suoi Tien) arrived in the city’s Khanh Hoi Port on October 8 aboard vessel Bayani.

One of 17 for the urban railway, the three-carriage train set out from Kasado Port in Japan.

The blue train is 61.5 metres in length, four metres wide, and three metres high, with a maximum speed of 110 km per hour and seats also of blue. It can carry some 930 passengers, with 783 standing.

According to Nguyen Quoc Hung, Deputy Director of Sai Gon Port, it takes a day to unload the carriages from the vessel onto special-use trucks. The job has support from Japanese experts.

The carriages are scheduled to be transported to Long Binh Depot in District 9 - the repair and maintenance workshop.

Construction of the city’s first metro line between Ben Thanh Market in District 1 and the Suoi Tien Theme Park in District 9 is expected to be completed within the next few months, with services to be underway by the end of next year.

It will have 14 stations, three of them underground. There will be 17 trains with three carriages each that will run at a maximum speed of 110 km per hour above ground and 80 km per hour underground.

The 2.05 billion USD line is the first of at least six to be built in the city./.