Designing and constructing the 10 trains for the Nhon-Hanoi Railway Station route is now 34.4 percent completed, according to a new report of the Hanoi Metropolitan Railway Management Board (MRB). 

The MRB is pushing the French contractor to speed up work so that the trains can start running in April 2021 on the elevated tracks. Work on the tracks is 99.5 percent complete.

The trains will have a maximum speed of 80 kilometers per hour (kph), but will operate at an average speed of 35 kph.

MRB has said that 35 kph is faster than the capital’s public buses’ speed of 16-18 kph and Hanoi Bud Rapid Transit (BRT) of 23 kph.

With a width of up to 2.95 meters and length of 80-100 meters, each train will be able to carry 850-950 passengers.

The MRB last month began moving and cutting down trees near the Hanoi Railway Station downtown to make area for an underground station.

The Nhon-Hanoi Railway Station route, the capital’s second metro line after Cat Linh-Ha Dong route, would run 12.5 kilometers from the Nhon area in the western district of Nam Tu Liem, via Kim Ma Street to Hanoi Railway Station on Le Duan Street.

It will run 8.5 kilometers on elevated tracks through eight stations and the remaining four kilometers underground. The underground track is scheduled to begin operations in 2023.

MRB has said that in the initial period, a train will arrive every five minutes, and later every two minutes.

The project has a total investment of VND36 trillion ($1.56 billion), which has been sourced from official development assistance (ODA) funds, and is now 50 percent complete.

Hanoi’s first metro line, connecting Cat Linh Station in downtown Dong Da District to the Yen Nghia Station in Ha Dong District, is said to be 99 percent complete, having missed its deadline several times.

The city said last month it would borrow $1.48 billion from ODA funds to build a new metro section in 2021.