(27/01/2022)
The employment announcement was agreed between Saudi Arabia’s Transport General Authority and the project owner, Saudi Arabia Railways (SAR).
Practical training on board the trains will begin in the summer of 2022, and the women are expected to be driving high-speed commercial trains by the end of the year. Renfe KSA currently employs 55 active and 48 trainee engine drivers, who are aided by eight Spaniards, including one woman.
The Haramain high-speed train (HHR), which links the holy cities of La Mecca and Medina, is the first railway of its kind in the Near East; it is managed by a consortium made up of twelve Spanish and two local companies, of which Renfe is the majority shareholder. The Spanish operator’s Saudi subsidiary has 484 employees, four hundred of whom are local and a third of these are women.
The training and knowledge-transfer work being carried out by Renfe, with the Arab country’s youth, was acknowledged by the Saudi Government in an event organised by Saudi Railway Polytechnic (SRP) on December 1 last year.
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