At last, some progress.
Dan Tri reports that starting this Saturday, December 12, the Cat Linh-Ha Dong Metro Line will undergo a full-scale trial run to test the entire system and all staff. Currently, Hanoi Metro has 681 staff for the line, including 41 conductors who were trained in China, and 18 that were trained in Vietnam.
Vũ Hồng Trường, general director of the metro company, told the news source that around 100 workers had previously quit due to the many delays the line has faced.
VnExpress adds more detail in Vietnamese, reporting that trial runs will last from 5am to 11pm daily for 20 days, with all 13 of the line's trains being tested along the entire route. Since early last month, metro staff have been practicing on and checking various parts of the line in preparation for this extended full-system run.
All of this will be observed by Apave-Certifer-Tricc, the French consortium that has been hired to conduct the overall safety certification for the Cat Linh-Ha Dong line.
According to the news source, if all goes well, the group will issue a safety certificate in the first quarter of 2021, after which the Ministry of Transport will take control of the project and begin public operations.
The route has been largely complete for almost two years, but repeated financial and bureaucratic hurdles have pushed back an opening date by months at a time. When it opens, Cat Linh-Ha Dong will become Vietnam's first functioning metro system.
[Photo via Giao Thong Hanoi]
