The location of Etihad Rail’s conventional speed main passenger stations in Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Fujairah can be revealed for the first time.

The specific locations of each station are:

• Dubai: behind the Jumeirah Golf Estates metro station on the Red Line
• Abu Dhabi: along the pipeline corridor separating Mussafah Industrial Area and Mohammed Bin Zayed City, between Dalma Mall and Musaffah bus station next to Phoenix Hospital
• Fujairah: parallel to Al-Hilal Street within the Al-Hilal City development

All three of the elevated stations are being constructed by China Railway International Group under a design and build contract, with China Southwest Architectural Design & Research Institute (CSWADI) and the local Jouzy Consulting Engineers as its design consultants.

Passenger hubs

The stations, together with the Sharjah University Station, will be the main passenger hubs for the conventional speed railway, which will travel at speeds of up to 200 kilometres an hour (km/h) along the existing 1,200 kilometre-long Etihad Rail freight track running between Al-Sila in the west to Fujairah in the east.

While the planned Fujairah station sits on the existing track, the Dubai and Abu Dhabi stations lie on two spur lines specifically built to serve them.

The former splits off from the spur line serving Jebel Ali Port at Al-Yalayis Street, opposite Dubai Investment Park, before running on to the Jumeirah Golf Estates metro station at the junction of Al-Yalayis Street and Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed Road. From there it will connect to the Dubai Metro Red Line.

The Abu Dhabi station will diverge from the main line between the two interchanges linking Skeikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al-Nahyan International Road with Al-Rawdah Road and Al-Umniyah Street.

The two dedicated spur lines serving both stations are being built by Etihad Rail subsidiary National Infrastructure Construction Company (NICC) and its subcontractor National Projects & Construction (NPC).

The spur line linking the planned Sharjah University Station and the main line is being built under a separate contract that was awarded in March to the local Tristar Engineering & Construction.

There are also understood to be several smaller passenger stations planned at grade level along the existing network, serving local traffic.

US-based Jacobs is providing overall engineering consulting and construction services for the client.

The precise locations of the three main stations on its conventional speed project have never been disclosed by Etihad Rail. However, with works under way on the spur lines and the station buildings themselves, there is now concrete evidence of their locations. Construction is expected to take 18-24 months.

High speed

The conventional speed passenger railway, using the existing freight network, is a precursor to the planned high-speed railway linking the centres of Abu Dhabi and Dubai. Soil testing and early works have already begun on the multibillion-dollar project, while contractors were asked to confirm their joint venture groupings by late August.

The standard definition of a high-speed railway is for lines capable of running speeds of more than 250km/h. As such, much of the new dedicated track is expected to be either elevated or underground, in order to be as straight as possible, especially if its stations will be located at the heart of both cities.

Even if work were to begin immediately, experience from other high-speed rail projects globally suggests that the project is unlikely to be fully operational until at least 2030.