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Light Rail Set for Launch in Hanoi

ByZhang Chunxia

Chinese-funded project intended to alleviate Vietnamese capital's significant traffic congestion

As a model project of China-Vietnam cooperation, the Cat Linh-Ha Dong urban light rail is the first light rail line to be built in Vietnam's capital, Hanoi, as well as the first to be built in the country as a whole. When completed in 2018, the project will help to alleviate Hanoi's considerable traffic congestion.

With temperatures as high as 33 degrees Celsius, Hanoi is hot at the end of April. At the construction site of La Khe Station, part of the Cat Linh-Ha Dong urban light rail, workers were busy bricklaying and setting up signposts. A train made to order in China stood on the finished track.

Vietnam's First Light Rail

“La Khe station is a typical station along the Cat Linh-Ha Dong line, which has now come closer to its completion. It will soon be open for public visit and will come into test operation at the end of this year,” explained Sun Dezhi, the overseas vice general manager of China Railway Engineering Corporation (CREC) Sixth Bureau. The Cat Linh-Ha Dong urban light rail is designed with a total length of around 13 kilometers and a projected top speed of 80 kilometers per hour. With total investment of US$850 million, the Chinese government has offered concessional loans and preferential export buyer’s credits. The project's engineering, procurement and construction use Chinese technology and Chinese standards.

As the general contractor of this project, the CREC Sixth Bureau is responsible for engineering, material supply, construction, personnel training and technology transfer. For a number of reasons, including conducting feasibility studies, funding and contract negotiations, construction work did not officially kick off until October 2011.

In fact, the Cat Linh-Ha Dong light rail was the last to be approved among three rail projects in Hanoi, but was also the first to start construction and will be the first to open.“After its opening in the second quarter of 2018, the line will be able to carry up to 134,000 passengers per hour and that number is expected to reach 232,000 eventually,” Sun added.“The line will greatly ease traffic congestion in Hanoi.”

From Doubt to Expectation

With processes of urbanization accelerating, traffic congestion continues to intensify in Hanoi, a city with a population of nearly 8 million. During rush hour, cars and motorcycles move slowly on the road and people have to put up with heavy pollution from exhaust. Therefore, boththe Chinese and Vietnamese governments attach great importance to the Cat Linh-Ha Dong light rail project. At the beginning of the construction work, however, the project was frequently questioned by the contract-issuing party and Hanoi citizens due to several misunderstandings.

Workers busy at the construction site.

The Cat Linh-Ha Dong light rail project under construction in Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam.

In 2015 in particular, many Hanoi citizens asked on online message boards why the train has to change elevation when it enters and exits a station, while Japanese designed tracks are entirely horizontal. Doubts about China’s design were heatedly discussed by Vietnamese netizens. “We explained to our clients and the Vietnamese transport authority that the gradient track helps save energy," Sun said. "At the same time, some engineering experts illustrated online how the project design works. These efforts gradually reassured the local people.”

Later in 2016, a video made by local citizens was posted on YouTube. Presented through a group of pictures, the video made a comparison between the Cat Linh-Ha Dong light rail project constructed by China in Hanoi and a metro project taken on by Japan in Ho Chi Minh City in terms of project duration, total cost and types and price of locomotives. The results show that the Made-in-China project is an improvement both in terms of construction cost and quality, sparking hot discussion on the internet.

Little by little, people’s doubt about the light rail project built by China transformed into expectation as the project neared completion. In the early hours of Feb. 19, 2017, the first train manufactured by China for the Cat Linh-Ha Dong line arrived in Hanoi and local citizens paid great attention to its arrival.

“Our crane operation started at 11 p.m. and despite drizzle, hundreds of Hanoi citizens came to watch," Sun said. "Some were old people and women holding children in their arms. The lifting lasted about four hours and ended at 3 a.m., amid warm applause and cheers from the crowd."

Using the Best Technology

According to normal procedures, the construction of a light rail depot should begin first. However, it took about four years for the CREC Sixth Bureau and its clients to decide on a treatment for its soft foundation. The location of the depot was originally a mud pond, and more than 10 meters of silt lay at its base. The client agreed to apply a soft foundation treatment to the train parking area, but considered it unnecessary to do the same in areas such as administrative buildings and storage buildings. In order to prevent cable breaks caused by ground subsidence, the CREC Sixth Bureau had no choice but to make the piping trench as solid as possible. “Our client only gave us money for direct burial, so we spent an additional 10 million yuan (US$1.5 million) on piping trenches,” Sun said.

The CREC Sixth Bureau has done much to ensure high project quality. The Cat Linh-Ha Dong light rail is built to withstand a magnitude-8 earthquake, and is equipped with top-quality public facilities, like TOTO bathroom products and a well-known Vietnamese tile brand. “We wouldn't use such high quality brands even to decorate our own homes,” one local employee exclaimed.

The inclusion of top quality products indicates that profit is not the ultimate goal of the project.

“Our goal is not to make a big fortune, but to have our project recognized by the Vietnamese people,” Sun said.

The hard work of the CREC Sixth Bureau has won wide approval within the Vietnamese government. According to the city’s plans, Hanoi will build eight metro lines with a total length of 305 kilometers. The Vietnamese Ministry of Transport hopes that the CREC Sixth Bureau will build another light rail line if everything goes well after the Cat Linh-Ha Dong line is launched.

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strong support from the Belt and Road Initiative,” Sun said. “With the best equipment and technology, we have great confidence in the success of this project.”