Business & Finance Group - Transportation - Dubai: Construction of the first phase of the UAE's 1,500-kilometre Union Railway has started in the southwestern region of the country, a senior official said.

It has also realigned its route network with the dense urban landscape of Dubai and other northeastern reaches of the project.

"We've already started some preparatory work," Richard Bowker, Union Railway's CEO, told reporters yesterday at the Middle East Rail 2010 conference.

He said the company is planning on bringing online new passenger trains soon after infrastructure is laid down that could travel 200 km/h in comparison to sister freight trains operating in the same corridors at speeds of around 120 km/h.

Early tests

Bowker said the Union Railway will seek expressions of interest in the next two months or perhaps even earlier if conditions allow. Bidding is expected to be highly competitive, he said.

Union Railway experts are "doing some geotechnical tests" for the initial leg of the Dh30-Dh40 billion ($11 billion) national railway project that will see more than 20,000 tonnes of granulated sulphur transported by freight train daily to the coast where it will be loaded aboard cargo ships bound for international destinations, he said.

Using "heavy haul, larger trains," as much as 7.5 million tonnes of the material will be moved every year, starting in 2013, said Bowker.

The project could be completed in seven to eight years. Up to 30 new bridges will be constructed as will camel and wadi crossings.

Extending the rail network into the dense urban landscape of Dubai is no easy task, said the former head of transport firm National Express Group of the UK.

Bowker arrived in the UAE in September 2009 to assume the helm not long after the government-owned Union Railway raised $1 billion (about Dh3.68 billion) in capital needed to build the first national rail network in the country.

Dubai alignment

"We've been working very carefully with our colleagues at the RTA (Roads and Transport Authority)," Bowker said.

"In the last few weeks we have made great steps in finalising the alignment in Dubai."

Mattar Al Tayer, CEO of the RTA also serves as vice-chairman of Union Railway, Bowker said, alongside Union Railway chairman Hussain Al Nowais.