GCF at High Speed Towards Marrakech

Design Launched for the New High-Speed Line

A double success for GCF in Morocco as part of the grand modernization project which, based on high-speed rail, aims to equip the country with a modern and efficient railway network.
For a total value of approximately €200 million, Generale Costruzioni Ferroviarie has been awarded two significant lots related to the extension of the high-speed line from Kenitra to Marrakech and the concurrent intervention project for modernizing the existing conventional lines.

“This is an important achievement,” comments Giuseppe Brecciaroli, Executive Director of GCF SpA, “which honors and rewards the work that GCF has been doing in Morocco for about a dozen years, contributing to the modernization of the railway network, the implementation of high-speed rail, and the overall development of the country.”

Lot 2 – HS Line Kenitra-Marrakech

Two lots were put out to tender by ONCF – the Moroccan National Railways Office – for the construction of the “High-Speed Line” (HS Line) Kenitra-Marrakech, the natural extension of the Tangeri–Kenitra line, the first high-speed line on the African continent inaugurated in 2018.

GCF, acting as the lead contractor of the consortium with three companies from its own group (Transalp Renouvellement, GCF Elettriche, and GCFMA), has been awarded Lot 2, relating to the southern section Sidi El Aidi – Marrakech, for an amount of €140 million. Approximately 200 km of line must be completed and put into service by 2030, when Morocco, together with Spain and Portugal, will host the World Cup.

“The new HS line,” explains Luca Goffi, project manager at GCF, “will have its own alignment, mostly following a route parallel to the existing one. It will be our task to lay the track on the platform, built by third parties, and to construct the contact line—from excavating the foundations to placing the poles, as well as the equipment and tensioning. The detailed design has commenced and, concurrently, we are preparing the construction site.”

Two construction bases are being set up in Sidi El Aidi and Benguerir over a total area of 165 hectares. They will serve as a logistics base, a depot for material storage and handling, and a maintenance area for high-efficiency machinery. The larger facility (1,000,000 m²), located in Benguerir, 50 km north of Marrakech, will also host the manufacturing plant for sleepers and the brand-new electric rail welding facility. Designed and built by GCF so that it can eventually be relocated if needed, it will be made available to ONCF, also in view of the further extension of the high-speed line to Agadir.

“The rails,” continues Luca Goffi, “which are cold-drawn in Piombino by JSW Steel Italy (the raw material, the ‘blum’, comes from India), are shipped as 36-meter bars by boat to Casablanca and, after an initial quality inspection, transferred by rail to the Benguerir plant where nine bars are welded together to form rails 324 meters long. In the automatic welding facility, the ends of the bars are cleaned, then proceed to welding, followed by a natural cooling zone, then a cooling tunnel, a straightening press, and finally grinding.” From there, using a specially equipped rail convoy composed of 17 flat wagons, the rails will be transported to the site and “slid” into place to be fixed to the sleepers.

Lot 4 – TVE Sidi El Aidi – Marrakech

The works envisaged under the second contract awarded to GCF SpA, acting as the lead contractor of the consortium with GCFMA, are equally ambitious. Lot 4, for the already existing double-track line (“Voies en Exploitation”) Sidi El Aidi – Marrakech, involves civil works, railway infrastructure works, and the design and construction of the contact line. This comprehensive set of works aims to increase the efficiency of the line and its stations and to improve the interconnection with the under-construction HS Kenitra–Marrakech line. The value of these works is €55 million, to be completed within 36 months.

In particular, the intervention will cover 6 existing stations (Sidi El Aidi, Setat, Benguerir, Sidi Boutmane, Palmerale–Sidi Ghanem, and Gueliz) and 2 new stations (Ville Verte and Stade de Marrakech, near the stadium). This type of intervention is not new for GCF, which, since its first contract in Morocco in 2014, was involved in the refurbishment of 20 stations along the Tangeri–Casablanca corridor, handling civil works, railway infrastructure, catenary, signaling, and lighting systems, and in 2017 carried out the full range of technological installations planned for the new Rabat–Agdal railway station.

“Also in this case, partly due to the HS line, substantial works are planned on the PRG,” summarizes Luca Goffi, “with the creation of new tracks, extension of precedence zones, and the laying of railway switches. In addition to these works on the rails and catenary, all complementary civil works will be constructed: platforms, sidewalks, hydraulic structures, and concrete boundary walls. We will be working in environments that are both in open tracks and in mixed-use areas with interferences from railway traffic.”

Railway traffic is particularly heavy not only because the line carries the regular flow of passengers and freight between Casablanca and Marrakech but also because it is used for transporting phosphates, of which Morocco is the world’s leading exporter. On the tracks between Sidi El Aidi and the Benguerir junction, it is not uncommon to encounter the famous “phosphate train” – the spectacular convoy of 70 hopper cars that continuously shuttles from the Khouribga mines to the Atlantic port of Safi.

For further study: 

Rabat-Agdal runs on GCF tracks.

GCF in celebration with Morocco for high-speed rail.

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