Morocco Launches $1.6 Billion Rail Expansion with 168 New Trains

The ONCF plans to acquire 168 trains: 150 trains for inter-city services, fast shuttle trains and metropolitan trains, and 18 high-speed trains for the extensions of high-speed lines, the office specifies on its website. To do this, it has launched a call for tenders. The acquisition of these new trains requires an investment of 16 billion dirhams (MMDH). According to the office, this structuring project, which is in line with King Mohammed VI’s vision, aims to strengthen the national rail as the preferred choice for sustainable and inclusive mobility.

This strengthening of the fleet will make it possible to support the strong growth in passenger traffic, to replace part of the rolling stock fleet that has reached the end of its life, but also to ensure the connections on the future extension of the high-speed line to Marrakech, as well as the proximity service, RER-type in the Casablanca and Rabat regions.

The ONCF will also provide a real opportunity to launch a Moroccan rail industrial ecosystem, which will have countless economic and social impacts, in terms of job creation, strengthening the national industrial fabric, with a local integration rate that will eventually make Morocco a highly competitive platform at the continental and global level.