VietNamNet Bridge – The Viet Nam Railways Corporation has proposed the Ministry of Transport build a separate track to the current railway from Ha Noi to HCM City, to meet increasing demand for transport.

A train travels along the current north-south railway. The Viet Nam Railways Corporation has proposed the Transport Ministry build another north-south track to meet increasing demand for transport.

In a proposal that was sent to the ministry, the corporation said the country's railway infrastructure was in poor condition.

The current North-South railway, with a width of 1 metre, runs a total length of more than 1,720 kilometres. It was built after the French colonisation.

The track's current maximum limit is only 25 trains per day, or 18 trains per day on some routes.

The construction of a track of the same width and running parallel to the current track would resolve the current problem, the proposal said.

Currently, railway transport accounts for only 0.5 percent of the total passenger transport market and 1 percent of total freight transport.

The sector plans to raise this to a target of 13 percent of passenger transport and 14 percent of freight transport by 2020.

Tran Ngoc Thanh, Chairman of Viet Nam Railways Corporation said the current track would be used for the next 36 years until the North-South high-speed railway was completed in 2050.

In the meantime, transport demand has surged, with road transport expanding faster than infrastructure has developed. Thanh said another track would help accommodate more than 100 trains per day compared with the status quo of 25.

If the project is approved, the railway sector could build the track itself without the assistance of foreign experts, he added.

The project would be funded from the State budget.

Source: VNS