Saudi Arabia Railways (SAR) has issued a tender for design consultancy services for its portion of the GCC railway, which will connect all six member states, a MEED report said.

The tender includes the concept design, preliminary design and Issued for Construction (IFC) design stages of the network.

SAR requires the selected consultant to review, update and complete the existing preliminary design of the network.

Bid submission deadline is June 30, said the report.

The kingdom’s section of the railway will start at Al-Khafji in the Eastern Province, near the border with Kuwait, and end at Al-Batha, at Saudi Arabia’s border with the UAE. The route length in Saudi Arabia will be about 672 km.

The railway will interface with the Kuwait National Rail Road (KNRR) project on the Kuwaiti side. The KNRR design contract was awarded to Türkiye’s Proyapi Muhendislik ve Musavirlik Anonim Sirketi, according to an earlier report by MEED.

Under the overall plan, the GCC railway will span 2,186 km, beginning in Kuwait, passing through Dammam in Saudi Arabia, reaching Bahrain via a planned causeway, and continuing from Dammam to Qatar, the UAE and, ultimately, Muscat via Sohar in Oman.

The network’s route length within each member state is as follows: 684km in the UAE, 672km in Saudi Arabia, 306km in Oman, 283km in Qatar, 145km in Kuwait and 36km in Bahrain.