While the Moroccan government and businesses praised the project as a key achievement in developing the country's infrastructure, the line has sparked controversy for its high cost. Critics say that Morocco should be investing in education and health instead.</s>French President Emmanuel Macron and Morocco's King Mohammed VI are inaugurating Morocco's first high-speed rail line, the first ever such line in Africa.

The $2 billion project was launched in September 2011 by the king and Nicolas Sarkozy, the former president of France, which jointly funded the line with several Arab states.

Known as the LGV — French for "high speed line" — it will connect the economic hubs of Tangier and Casablanca in 2 hours 10 minutes at a speed of 320 km/h (199m/h) instead of almost 5 hours on a regular train. It will be inaugurated Thursday.

The king named the first line Al Boraq after a mythical winged creature that transported the prophets to the heavens.</s>By The Associated Press

RABAT, Morocco (AP) — French President Emmanuel Macron and Morocco’s King Mohammed VI have inaugurated Morocco’s first high-speed rail line, the first ever such line in Africa. Known as the LGV, it will connect the…

RABAT, Morocco (AP) — French President Emmanuel Macron and Morocco’s King Mohammed VI have inaugurated Morocco’s first high-speed rail line, the first ever such line in Africa.

Known as the LGV, it will connect the economic hubs of Tangier and Casablanca in 2 hours 10 minutes at a speed of up to 320 kph (199 mph) instead of almost 5 hours on a regular train.

The Moroccan and French leaders boarded the train in Tangier after they were handed tickets by Director General of the National Railway Office Mohamed Rabie Khlie, according to State agency MAP.

They were expected to reach the country’s capital, Rabat, 1 hour and 15 minutes later.

The $2 billion project was launched in September 2011 by the king and Nicolas Sarkozy, then president of France.

France financed 51 percent of the project, Morocco 28 percent and the remaining 21 percent was provided by Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates.

Macron’s office said the Moroccan line is an international showcase for the French-made high-speed train. Morocco bought 12 such trains from French manufacturer Alstom.

The king named the first line Al Boraq after a mythical winged creature that transported the prophets to the heavens.

Morocco’s railway office expects 6 million passengers on the line in the first three years of operation.

While the Moroccan government and businesses praised the project as a key achievement in developing the country’s infrastructure, the line has sparked controversy for its high cost. Critics say that Morocco should be investing in education and health instead.

The criticism gained strength mid-October when a train derailed, killing seven people and injuring more than 100.

Copyright © 2018 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, written or redistributed.</s>RABAT, Morocco — French President Emmanuel Macron and Morocco’s King Mohammed VI have inaugurated Morocco’s first high-speed rail line, the first ever such line in Africa.

Known as the LGV, it will connect the economic hubs of Tangier and Casablanca in 2 hours 10 minutes at a speed of up to 320 kph (199 mph) instead of almost 5 hours on a regular train.

The Moroccan and French leaders boarded the train in Tangier after they were handed tickets by Director General of the National Railway Office Mohamed Rabie Khlie, according to State agency MAP.

They were expected to reach the country’s capital, Rabat, 1 hour and 15 minutes later.

The $2 billion project was launched in September 2011 by the king and Nicolas Sarkozy, then president of France.

France financed 51 per cent of the project, Morocco 28 per cent and the remaining 21 per cent was provided by Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates.

Macron’s office said the Moroccan line is an international showcase for the French-made high-speed train. Morocco bought 12 such trains from French manufacturer Alstom.

The king named the first line Al Boraq after a mythical winged creature that transported the prophets to the heavens.

Morocco’s railway office expects 6 million passengers on the line in the first three years of operation.

While the Moroccan government and businesses praised the project as a key achievement in developing the country’s infrastructure, the line has sparked controversy for its high cost. Critics say that Morocco should be investing in education and health instead.

The criticism gained strength mid-October when a train derailed, killing seven people and injuring more than 100.</s>Known as the LGV — French for "high speed line" — it will connect the economic hubs of Tangier and Casablanca in 2 hours 10 minutes at a speed of 320 km/h (199m/h) instead of almost 5 hours on a regular train. It will be inaugurated Thursday.</s>SACRAMENTO — Pushing to break ground on California’s high-speed rail project before critical planning for the Central Valley line was in place drove up its cost by $600 million, with that “flawed decision” potentially increasing the price tag by another $1 billion, state Auditor Elaine Howle said Thursday.

And more financial problems are looming for high-speed rail. The state could lose $3.5 billion in federal grant money if the first segment of the line is not completed by December 2022 as planned, Howle warned in a report. The auditor’s office said to meet that deadline, the pace of construction must double over the next four years.

The completion date for the entire San Francisco-to-Los Angeles bullet-train line has already been pushed back to 2033 and the cost has shot up to $77 billion. That is more than twice the price tag of $32 billion that was pitched to voters nearly a decade ago.

Construction on the first part of the line, a 119-mile stretch from Madera to Bakersfield, began in 2015, before the state had acquired much of the needed land. That “directly resulted in delays to the construction schedules,” Howle said.

The auditor’s report comes as the project’s biggest champion, Gov. Jerry Brown, prepares to leave office in the coming weeks. Gov.-elect Gavin Newsom has been less enthusiastic about high-speed rail than Brown, saying he would focus on completing the portion from the San Joaquin Valley to the Bay Area before deciding whether to make a push to Los Angeles.

The California High Speed Rail Authority said it would adopt all of the auditor’s recommendations, which included deciding how much land the state should buy before breaking ground on future segments.

“Our concurrence with all of the recommendations for process improvements in this audit report does not signal agreement with all of its conclusions about the impact of past decisions by the authority,” Mike Rossi, a rail authority board member, said in a statement.

Howle said the rail authority needs to improve its oversight of contracts to control soaring costs. Auditors found “significant problems” with how the agency reviews invoices and contracts.

The audit released Thursday was done at the request of the Joint Legislative Audit Committee. Assemblyman Jim Patterson, R-Fresno, a critic of the rail project, said the report shows that high-speed rail is “dead in the water.”

“There will never be a completed track from the Bay Area to Los Angeles,” Patterson said. “This project cannot be revived in its current state, and this audit is further proof that the best we can hope for is a rump railroad running from Bakersfield to Madera.”</s>A state audit of California's controversial High Speed Rail project on Thursday revealed poor decision-making led to billions of dollars in cost overruns.A scathing report by State Auditor Elaine Howle said "flawed decision-making" and "poor contract management" by the agency not only caused it to exceed the budget, but also caused delays in the system's construction.Bridges and viaducts designed to move the high-speed rail can be found throughout Fresno and Madera counties. But the audit revealed the project has ended up with cost overruns of $600 million for Valley high speed rail construction work, while $1.6 billion was still needed to complete the local projects."It is not connectable," said Republican Assemblyman Jim Patterson of Fresno. "We are the canary in the coal mine in central California and we've been screwed."Patterson said he believes the project is dead in the water."The best we can hope for in central California is a rump railroad that runs between just outside Bakersfield and just outside Madera," he added.The audit criticized the High Speed Rail Authority for starting construction in 2013 before it had a critical plan for the land needed.But the agency defended its decisions and insisted work will continue on the 21st century high speed rail system."Those decisions resulted in California being able to take full advantage of $2.5 billion of federal funding that was available within a finite time period," High Speed Rail Authority board member Mike Rossi said in a statement."The Authority will promptly implement all of the Auditor's recommendations."The audit said formal prerequisites need to be established before construction to prevent cost overruns and delays. If the high speed rail isn't completed by 2022, the federal government can demand its portion of the project back, according to the audit.That sum now amounts to $3.5 billion.</s>French President Emmanuel Macron and Morocco's King Mohammed VI are expected to inaugurate Africa's first high-speed train line on Thursday.

These high-speed trains are flashing along the Atlantic coast of Morocco.

The French-made double-decker TGVs are being tested today ahead of the launch of a flagship new line connecting Tangier with Morocco's economic capital Casablanca in 2018.

The $2 billion project has been in development for a decade, funded by the governments of Morocco, France, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the UAE.

King Mohammed VI and the Moroccan government expect the trains to deliver wealth and prestige for the country. But opponents claim they are an expensive folly.

The Tangiers-Casablanca route is expected to generate a sharp increase in passenger numbers that will boost tourism, support wider economic growth in the cities, and recoup the investment on it.

The director general went on to add that growing passenger numbers had caused "saturation of the network," making the new line a necessity.

He denied that an upgraded service would lead to high costs for passengers.

"We will run trains intended for Moroccans and thus adapted to the purchasing power of Moroccans," said Khlie. "We do not want a train reserved for high-end customers."

"The ONCF business model is based on the French model in which trains are heavily subsidized," he says. "If the number of passengers does not materialize in two to three years, the government will have to provide subsidies."

The government will hope to stimulate new economic activity in areas along the route, according to the analyst.

The new train line will impress foreign investors but they are likely to remain wary of Morocco, according to Riccardo Fabiani, a senior analyst at the Eurasia Group.

"If you are a businessman deciding to install an operation in Africa and you are torn between Morocco and another country, this kind of modern world-class infrastructure could help tip the balance," he says. "But there are other problems with the domestic economy."

"The current authorities are replicating the colonial model of looking at some areas like Tangier and Casablanca but forgetting the rest of country," says the analyst. "So there is world class infrastructure in one area and untarred roads in others."

"Morocco is a poor country and the top priority should be education," says Omar Balafraj, a leader campaigner and member of parliament for the Federation of the Democratic Left party.

Balafraj tells a joke that he feels captures the folly of the project: "A man meets a homeless man who is almost naked, and asks him what he needs. He answers: 'only a ring.'"

But despite such reservations, the project is almost certainly too far advanced now to be stopped in its tracks.

The high-speed Tangier to Casablanca service will soon be welcoming its first passengers.</s>Turkey will open two new high-speed rail lines next year, as it continues to expand its high-speed rail network.

Turkey's first high-speed train line opened in 2014, between Istanbul's Pendik district and the capital Ankara.

The Pendik-Halkalı extension will be opened in the first quarter of 2019, Transportation and Infrastructure Minister Cahit Turhan said Friday.

"Passengers will be able to continue their journey without getting off at Pendik," he said, adding that this line will also be available for the Konya-Istanbul high-speed line.

He said that the Ankara-based high-speed rail network currently serves on Ankara-Istanbul, Ankara-Konya and Konya-Eskişehir-Istanbul lines, along which around 40 percent of Turkey's population resides.

Turhan announced that the Ankara-Sivas high-speed train line will come into operation by the end of next year. He said that the layouts have been initiated, the infrastructure works were completed to a great extent and superstructure works are currently in progress. "Works on tunnels and viaducts are also moving at a great pace," he added.

The Turkish government earlier this year announced its plans to invest 39 billion euros in the railway network over the next five years. The country has already invested more than 18.5 billion euros in the last 15 years.

The minister added that works on the Ankara-İzmir high-speed train project were going ahead at full speed. "We are planning to commission the Ankara-Uşak line in 2020, while the section extending to western Turkey's İzmir will come into service in late 2020 or early 2021," he said.

Construction works were also in progress on the Konya-Karaman-Yenice and Mersin-Adana-Osmaniye-Kahramanmaras-Gaziantep high-speed train lines, Turhan said. He added that work on the route that will connect the south line to Şanlıurfa and the middle axis to Niğde via Sivas, Malatya, Elazığ, and Diyarbakır were also ongoing. "Likewise, Niğde, which will be connected to the southern port via Samsun, Delice and Aksaray, will connect the ports of Samsun and Iskenderun via Mersin. With these lines, the work on the Erzincan-Trabzon line is moving ahead," he said. He pointed out that in addition to railway infrastructure, locomotives and cars, referred to as train sets, will be imported from Germany. "We have purchased seven high-speed train sets from Germany to date. The tenders we held for the last 10 units of high-speed train sets were also won by Germany's Siemens. After the signing of an agreement, the sets are now being produced," he added. Earlier in April, the Turkish State Railways (TCDD) reached a 340-million-euro deal with Siemens to buy 10 Velaro high-speed train sets. Stressing that the Germans and Chinese are interested in the high-speed railway projects in Turkey, the minister said that the financing works on this issue continues with the joint efforts of the ministries of Transport and Infrastructure and Treasury and Finance.</s>The re-routing of the Dawlish rail line closer to the sea will NOT see a popular beach lost to the public.

Network Rail has a programme of improvements to protect the line between Exeter and Newton Abbot to improve resilience over the next century.

The causeway option would see the line rebuild from the tunnel at Smugglers’ Lane in Holcombe, out on to the beach past Spray Point, and then would curve back in land towards Teignmouth.

The option could cost up to £500million but no funding has yet been pledged for the work or a timeframe put in place.

But at Thursday morning’s Teignbridge Locality Committee meeting, David Lovell, Network Rail Programme Manager for the Western and Wales region revealed that although the line is still set to be realigned, it won’t move as far away from the cliffs and across the beach as initially planned.

Mr Lovell said: “Our designer is currently development the track alignment to reduce reclamation and are continuing to work up options based on extensive investigations. We are proposing a design that will be similar to a rockfall shelter and will reduce the impact on the beach. The issue is that we have is that we cannot physically present what it will look like at the moment.”

Asked by Cllr Sylvia Russell if that meant Network Rail would no longer be realigning the line, he replied: “It will still go out seaward, but it won’t go out as far as we thought in 2016 for a period of the line. A lot of the beach at Holcombe will remain, but I cannot present that today as to how it will look like, but that is where we are now.”

He added the walkway would be retained and the sea wall would have a wave return to deflect energy away from the cliffs and the railway line.

The news was welcomed by councillors on the committee, who said the residents of Holcombe would be happy.

Mr Lovell also told councillors that early in 2019, the final design of the new seawall planned for Marine Parade in Dawlish would be presented.

But he said that the wall will be 7.5m tall with a wave return to deflect the energy of the waves and to stop them going over the railway, that the walkway will be 4m wide when it is currently 3.1m wide, and there will be a barrier between the pedestrians and the edge of the to stop people falling off the wall.

He added: “Once we build a better sea wall, the overtopping of the sea water won’t happen. We are putting a design in place that will be there for 100 years, accounts for sea level rise, and won’t get the spray overtopping the railway line.”

He added that Network Rail were also coming up with design solutions to improve resilience for the area around Dawlish station. Mr Lovel said: “It would be an own goal to improve the Marine Parade sea wall only for the railway to be still closed as there is flooding at Dawlish station.”

However Cllr Rosalind Prowse questioned whether anything had actually changed since the line was washed away in the storms in 2014.

She said: “Sad to say I don’t think we’ve moved on a great deal since then and I still have the same concerns as did in 2014, but the weather has got worse and already with the unusually early storm the trains have had to stop running twice.

“I think that remedial are a waste of money and we should be doing the major works to get the line secured. Until the money is forthcoming, we could still be talking about it in four years’ time, but we all know that the money will appear if they line gets washed away.”

FEBRUARY 1847: Brunel’s atmospheric railway along the coast opened between Exeter and Teignmouth and extended to Newton Abbot in January, 1848. FEBRUARY 2014: The century-old seawall at Dawlish was destroyed by crashing waves, which scooped out hundreds of tonnes of ballast, forcing the evacuation of families from Riviera Terrace and Sea Lawn. MARCH 2014: Specialist fire crews set off a controlled landslide above the Dawlish to Teignmouth rail track where workmen battled to reopen the line. JULY 2014: Orange Army commended with special award for their work. JULY 2014: Network Rail report released. The Government effectively committed itself to spending at least £400million to ensure there is never a repeat of the main Devon and Cornwall railway line collapsing at Dawlish. DECEMBER 2014: Chancellor George Osborne criticised for his silence on the rail line in his Autumn Statement. MARCH 2016: Mr Osborne pledged £5 million in the first stage of improvements to the resilience of the line in Budget. AUGUST 2016: Network Rail awarded £10 million contract to investigate the coastal cliff frontage in Dawlish to Teignmouth section. OCTOBER 2016: Network Rail begins public information events on its investigations and resilience plans. NOVEMBER 2016: Peninsula Rail Task Force submits Closing The Gap, its 20-year plan for the region’s railway, to the government. SEPTEMBER 2017: Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn promises, if the party wins power, to find £600million for rail resilience work at Dawlish while having an all weather bypass route in the future. NOVEMBER 2017: Transport minister Jesse Norman says that reopening a railway line avoiding the coast, via Okehampton and Tavistock is a ‘very important potential idea’. It would be in addition to the Dawlish line, he said while visiting Exeter St Davids. JANUARY 2018: Peninsula Rail Task Force demands answers after still receiving no Government response to its Closing The Gap report. JANUARY 2018: South West Devon MP Gary Streeter said he expects the government to announce that around £200million will be spent on the line in the next 2-3 years. JANUARY 2018: Transport secretary Chris Grayling states that Dawlish is ‘number one national transport priority’ and promises a response to Closing The Gap by the end of February. FEBRUARY 2018: Network Rail outlines its five-year plan for ongoing maintenance for the region's network in Control Period 6 FEBRUARY 2018: Minister of State for Transport Jo Johnson responds to the PRTF Closing the Gap report but offers no 'miracle cure' for Dawlish MARCH 2018: Homes in Dawlish evacuated, part of the rail line damaged and seaside cafe washed away during Storm Emma MARCH 2018: Transport minister renews pledge to do 'whetever it takes' to safeguard Dawlish rail line

Mr Lovell said that the funding will come from central government as Network Rail don’t have the pot of money for it, and that they been advised the Dawlish rail line is Secretary of State for Transport Chris Grayling’s number one priority. He added: “I am convinced that this will happen and me and my team doing all we can to progress the schemes as quickly as we can, but they do take a long time.”

Cllr Prowse however said: “But a big storm doesn’t take a long time, it takes just a few hours.”

And Cllr Jackie Hook asked if Network Rail could guarantee there won’t be a catastrophic cliff fall.

Mr Lovell said: “I cannot. In 2014, we had no advance warning it would happen. We are monitoring the cliffs and looking for any movement, and if we identified an issue, we would cliff the line, but we cannot guarantee the cliffs won’t fail. We are doing all we can to monitor and make things safe.”

The next phase of work to protect the sea wall at Dawlish has begun, Mr Lovel told councillors.

Four breakwaters at Boat Cove, Coastguards Point, Colonnade Underpass and Langstone Rock are being repaired. The work is set to take six months and will be carried out by world leaders in coastal, tunnel, cliff and railway engineering from Network Rail and BAM Nuttall.

Investigations are also continuing into whether loose material from the clifftop above Parsons Tunnel at Holcombe can be removed to stabilise the cliff and reduce the risk of landslips.
The Kenitra–Tangier high-speed rail line, the first in Africa, is inaugurated.