U.S. San Francisco Chronicle has hailed the rail travel experience on Morocco’s high-speed train “Al Boraq”, the first and only high-speed railway in Africa.
Al Boraq is run by Morocco’s national rail company, ONCF. It cuts journey times by half between tangier in the North and Casablanca, said the American newspaper in a story authored by Joe Mathews who travelled onboard the Moroccan HS train from Casablanca to Tangier in 2 hours,17 minutes.
Before Al Boraq opened in 2018, the same route took 5 hours, the reporter said, noting that both of his Al Boraq trips were packed with young crowds.
Morocco built a 323-kilometer line across floodplains, requiring 286 engineering structures and 13 viaducts—including the landmark 3.5-kilometer Hachef viaduct south of Tangier.
How did Morocco pull this off? The answer lies in international partnership, structural simplicity, and raw political will, underlined the U.S. daily, saying Morocco has made this railway achievement through partnership with France’s national railway, SNCF, and the engineering giant Alstom. Morocco also used four existing stations for its first line, rather than build new ones.
This coastal line is merely Phase 1 of a 1,500-kilometer high-speed network, slated for completion by 2030, when Morocco is co-hosting the 2030 FIFA World Cup, said the San Francisco Chronicle columnist.
The next steps, already underway, include dedicated high-speed service between Rabat and Kenitra (construction I saw in progress), new commuter rail for Casablanca, and a brand-new high-speed line south from Casablanca to Marrakech and onward to Agadir, he added
“As my train reaches the Tangier station right on schedule — exactly 2 hours, 17 minutes — I feel respect”, said Joe Mathews, commending Morocco high-speed rail experience as an inspiration model.