The Saudi Landbridge Project is a part of the Saudi Railways Organization’s railway expansion program. 

The project is one of the biggest in the region and involves construction of 950 km of new line between Riyadh and Jeddah. It will be a passenger – freight double stack line interoperable with the North-South railway link. 

The design speed of passenger trains is expected to be 250 km/h and 140 km/h for freight trains.

Alpina designed the Lot 1, from Jeddah urban area, inside the Wady Fatimah and up to the mountainous area (km 87).

Highly urbanized context, with many infrastructural interferences inside Jeddah and Jeddah Port area, such as pipelines, hydraulic channels, urban highways, that required the study of several railway viaducts with variable spans (20-65 m) and different construction technologies;

Geotechnical, due to the presence of Sabka in the coastal area that required special treatment with deep mixing to increase ground load capacity of the soils;

Hydrological, due to the presence of Wadi Fatimah valley, the design adopted several protection measures and adequate hydraulic crossing structures – designed also to consider sand transportation effects.

Environmental:

difficult conditions in desert environment, characterized by strong winds, high temperatures and extreme storm events that cause massive flooding that have required the development of advanced studies and specific solutions. Among these, the “Sand Mitigation” to ensure the safety conditions for trains in order to reduce sand on the track