Morocco is the first African country to join the select group of nations having high-speed railway, says Friday US TV channel CNN.
In 2018, Africa gained its first high-speed railway with the opening of the Al-Boraq line in Morocco, CNN points out in its Travel section.
“Africa’s first, and so far only, dedicated high speed railway opened in November 2018, linking the port city of Tangier with Casablanca in Morocco,” it says.
The $2 billion project also included an upgrade of the existing 137 kilometer (85-mile) section between Rabat and Casablanca for higher speeds, reducing the end-to-end journey time from 4 hours 45 minutes to just 2 hours 10 minutes, CNN underlines, adding that once the proposed new line to Casablanca is built, travel time will be cut to just 90 minutes.
Al-Boraq holds the African rail speed record too — during pre-service tests in 2017 one of the 12 Alstom-built trains touched 357 kph (222 mph) on the new line — more than twice the speed of any next fastest trains currently running on the African continent, it says.
