HÀ NỘI — The Cát Linh-Hà Đông metro line in the capital city will conduct its test run in October this year, officials have said.

Following a meeting with project investors and workers on Wednesday at the Hà Đông Depot, deputy minister of transport Nguyễn Hồng Trường said, so far, the elevated urban railway project had completed 90 per cent of the work.

He urged investors, contractors and workers to accelerate work on the remaining 10 per cent of the project, so that the metro line would be ready for the test run by October 1 and could start operations in the second quarter of 2018.

After a brief hiatus for Tết (Lunar New Year) festival, construction work on the railway resumed on Wednesday.

On the same day, the China Railway Sixth Group, an engineering, procurement and construction contractor, and the construction ministry’s Railway Project Management Unit signed a commitment to speed up construction, ensure safety of workers and protect the environment.

Lê Kim Thành, general director of Railway Project Management Unit, said the project executors had finished laying 13.05km of tracks, and the 13 trains to be run on the route were also ready. The first train is expected to reach Việt Nam port on Saturday.

Work on the elevated railway project began in 2011 with an investment of US$552 million, of which $169 million came from the Chinese Official Development Assistance programme. In November 2014, it was announced that the project would need a total of $868 million, about $300 million more than the initial estimates.

The project linking Đống Đa District’s Cát Linh Street with the Yên Nghĩa Bus Station in Hà Đông District includes 12 stations and a depot at Phú Lương Ward in Hà Đông District.

The project will stretch over 13km, while the depot in Hà Đông will be spread over 19.6ha.

The railway will operate 13 trains that will run every two minutes at a maximum speed of 80kmph.— VNS