The Train to Mecca

Seeing as a Spanish consortium has beaten out one from France for the 7 billion euro contract to build, stock with vehicles, operate and maintain the 450 kilometre long high speed 'pilgrim train' in Saudi Arabia, it's probably a good moment to apprise the reader of the impressive international expansion of this country's construction services industry - in this case represented by OHL - over the last few years. We're not sure why construction exports spiked like that in the latter half of 2007, but the industry has never looked back from that moment.

According to a Saudi Rail official (quoted here):

"This phase of the project includes the construction of railway tracks, installation of signalling and telecommunication systems, electrification, operational control centre, the procurement of 35 trains, and the operation and maintenance for a period of 12 years."

Apparently, there is also an option to purchase 23 more trains from Talgo over the life of the contract. This company is not listed but train, streetcar and subway manufacturer, CAF, is. Their chart is seen on the left.

The Madrid-listed Indra will be supplying the scheduling and ticket sale software to accommodate the projected 160,000 passenger per day capacity of the system. Click through to their chart to see a nice example of leakage - up nearly 20 percent in the last month, presumably on yesterday's news.

How many others think that maybe the excellent relations between the Spanish royal family and their Saudi equivalents may have had some say in this outcome?

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