Λονδίνο - Μαρακές με express τραίνο;

A deal has been signed to provide a high-speed rail link between Tangiers and Marrakesh, reports Tony Jeffries.

The days of bumpy, overnight or all-day train journeys across Morocco are numbered. This week, the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, signed a £1.2billion deal to provide a high-speed rail link between Tangiers and Marrakesh.

Both the track and the 125mph trains will be built by the French engineering group Alstom, the maker of the French high-speed TGV.

The 310-mile journey between the Mediterranean port and the southern city, with stops at Rabat and Casablanca, will take less than three hours compared with the current 11 hours. The line is expected to be operational before 2015.

By 2025 it should be possible to travel by rail direct from London to Marrakesh. The feasibility study into a tunnel under the Strait of Gibraltar has been extended because of geological complications, but is expected to be completed next year.

Spain and Morocco have already agreed in principle to the construction of a £10billion, 17-mile long tunnel from Punta Paloma, 30 miles west of Gibraltar, to Tangiers. The project has a target opening date of 2025.

The tunnel will be modelled on the Channel Tunnel, but a spokesman for Lombardi, the Swiss engineering firm carrying out the study, said that the greater depth of the sea floor and softer rock would make this a more complicated project.

(πηγή: www.telegraph.co.uk, 27/10/2007)