THE government of Saudi Arabia has exercised the five-year extension option in the contract to equip, operate and maintain the 453km Haramain high-speed line from Mecca to Medina, which will now be operated until 2038 by the Al-Shoula consortium that includes Spanish national operator Renfe, infrastructure manager Adif and rolling stock manufacturer Talgo.

The signing of the contract addendum was announced on February 8 by Spain’s minister of transport and sustainable mobility, Óscar Puente, who was meeting in Riyadh with Saudi Arabia’s minister of transport and logistics services, Saleh bin Nasser Al-Jasser.

According to Puente, the addendum is worth over €2.8bn to Spanish companies, with the operations and maintenance component worth €300m a year. In addition, Saudi Arabia Railways (SAR) has placed an order worth €1.3bn with Talgo for 20 new trains that will be similar to the 35 supplied by the Spanish manufacturer for the opening of Saudi Arabia’s first high-speed line in 2018.

Each train will comprise two power cars and 13 coaches, with a total of 417 seats in two classes, in addition to catering facilities and spaces for passengers with reduced mobility. The new trains will operate at up to 300km/h in passenger service.

The Haramain fleet will continue to be maintained at the two Talgo facilities in Saudi Arabia, which employ over 270 people. Talgo says that it will maintain all 50 trains until 2033, with the possibility of extending the contract until 2038.

Renfe has over 1000 employees in Saudi Arabia, where in 2025 high-speed services carried a record 10 million passengers, up from the previous record of 9.1 million set the year before. Over 100 services are operated a day, increasing to more than 140 during the Hajj pilgrimage season when 2 million passengers were carried in 2025.

The full Haramain service was introduced on March 31 2021 when the 12-year operations and maintenance component of the contract awarded to Al-Shoula came into force, including the five-year extension option now exercised.

According to Puente, the contract extension and new fleet order demonstrate that Spanish companies active in the rail sector “are world leaders, both in terms of infrastructure construction and service quality.”

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