President of the French Senate Gérard Larcher inspects the progress of the metropolitan railway line Nhổn – Hà Nội Station on Friday. — VNA/VNS Photos Phạm Kiên

HÀ NỘI — President of the French Senate Gérard Larcher visited the France-invested metropolitan railway line Nhổn – Hà Nội Station in the capital city on Friday, as part of his visit to Việt Nam from December 8-9.

At the working session, the delegation went to Station S8 – Cầu Giấy District, listening to brief reports on Hà Nội’s urban railway planning from head of Hà Nội Metropolitan Railway Management Board Nguyễn Cao Minh, the implementation situation of the Nhổn-Hà Nội Station section that is deemed a pilot urban railway project of Hà Nội.

The delegation also travelled from Station S8 to the Depot area, visiting the project’s operation control centre (OCC), then travelled from S1 – Nhổn Station to S8 – Cầu Giấy Station.

The President of the French Senate highly appreciated the role of the pilot urban railway project of Hà Nội, hoping that the project will overcome difficulties and challenges to soon be put into operation.

The Nhổn-Hà Nội Station section has a total length of 12.5 km, passing through eight elevated stations and four underground stations; in which, the elevated section (Nhổn-Cầu Giấy) is 8.5 km long and the underground section (Cầu Giấy – Hà Nội Station) is 4 km long.

The project comprises nine bidding packages for construction and installation, equipment, and one general consulting package.

To date, the project has completed 6 of 8 phases in the trial run and is implementing phase 7 that is system testing.

The Nhổn-Hà Nội Station line is supported by ODA loans of the French Government, the French Development Agency (AFD), the Asian Development Bank (AFD), European Investment Bank (EIB), and domestic counterpart funds.

Construction of the project began in 2010, with the elevated sections expected to be operational in the end of 2022. — VNS

President of the French Senate Gérard Larcher inspects the progress of the metropolitan railway line Nhổn – Hà Nội Station on Friday. — VNA/VNS Photos Phạm Kiên