The Long Binh Depot in District 9 for Saigon’s first metro line between Ben Thanh Market and Suoi Tien is around 82 percent complete. 

The 20-hectare depot will serve as a control center and maintenance yard for trains on Metro Line 1 until 2040. The facility, to be 90 percent completed this year, is ready to receive locomotives and coaches from Japan in the second quarter. They are being built by Hitachi.

There are tracks to park 30 trains, each with a water drainage trench. There are covered yards so that the trains will not be affected by the weather while undergoing maintenance.

The main workshop, which spans 4,000 m2, is almost ready.

It has been equipped with frames to install equipment for maintenance and repairs. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, import of the equipment from Italy and Germany has been delayed.

Several trenches with tracks, 1.5 m deep, have been built, and they are wide enough for workers to climb down and work under the subway cars.

The train cleaning yard is next to the workshop, and has been completed.

The wheel lathing yard is also next to the workshop. It is where the trains' wheels will be repaired.

The control center for the entire line.

Internal roads within the depot have also been more or less completed.

The tracks in the depot are tougher than normal since they will constantly serve high-speed trains.

The depot's main electrical substation is in the process of being completed. Tracks, roofs, electrical systems in some buildings, and some other installations will be completed soon to prepare for receiving the trains, according to the HCMC Management Authority for Urban Railways (MAUR).

A worker builds a water drainage trench inside a yard.

Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, foreign experts who will work on the equipment have not been allowed to enter Vietnam.

An illustration of the Long Binh Depot. Photo courtesy of MAUR.

The delivery of the first two trains from Japan have been delayed because of the Covid-19 pandemic, Bui Xuan Cuong, director of MAUR, said. The elevated section from Binh Thai Station to the depot would have a test run in the third quarter, he added.

The Metro Line 1 will run 20 km, 2.6 km of it underground, and cost VND46.3 trillion ($1.98 billion). It will have 14 stations, three of them underground. The target is to complete 85 percent of the work this year so that it can begin commercial operations by the end of next year. It is currently 75 percent complete.