Tata Steel has won an order to produce 60,000 tonnes of high-quality rails for a new high-speed line linking Makkah and Madinah in Saudi Arabia.

The new Haramain High Speed Rail (HHSR) will allow millions of pilgrims to cross the 444-km stretch between the two holy cities at speeds of 320 kmph.

The line will cross desert, withstanding temperatures ranging from freezing to 50 deg C, as well as sandstorms, flash flooding and shifting dunes.

Gerard Glas, rail sector head for Tata Steel, said: “Tata Steel is delighted to be contributing to this high-speed line, which will have to overcome some major challenges presented by building a high-capacity rail line across some of the most extreme terrain in the world.”

Steel for the project will be made at Tata Steel’s Scunthorpe plant in the UK before being rolled into rail in lengths of 25 m both there and at the company’s plant in Hayange, Northern France.

Work on producing the rail will start at the end of this year and is expected to continue throughout 2014.

Last year, the Saudi Railways Organization awarded the contract for the final phase of the HHSR project to a group of Spanish infrastructure, construction and technology companies – Copasa, Imathia and OHL – which are responsible for building the line’s superstructure and the track bases, as well as for the line’s mechanisms.

The new line is expected to carry around 160,000 people a day – and even more during the Haj pilgrimage. They will be transported on a fleet of 35 new high-speed trains.

The project started in 2009, with an estimated cost of more than €12 billion ($16 billion). The new rail line is set to open to the public in late 2014 or early 2015.

Apart from the two holy cities, the line will have three other stops – two in Jeddah for commuters and one in the new King Abdullah Economic City.