Installation of ECRL track to start year-end, involving Gebeng-Dungun route

Focus

17 May 2023 05:37pm

An aerial view of the ECRL construction site in Dungun, Terengganu July 25, 2019. ― Picture by Hari Anggara

KUANTAN - The installation of the first track of the East Coast Rail Link (ECRL) project involving the route from Gebeng here to Dungun, Terengganu is scheduled to start at the end of this year.

Malaysia Rail Link Sdn Bhd (MRL) regional construction manager (Pahang) Khairi Khalid Abdul Rahman said it involves a 90-kilometre (km) route and is expected to be completed in three to four months before the installation work continues from Gebeng to Maran.

"We hope to lay 1.5 km of track per day for the Gebeng to Dungun route. The installation work starts in Gebeng because the equipment used including track laying machines from China are coming here in line with the project planning.

"All these equipment will arrive at Kuantan Port between October or November, to enable the installation of the track to begin in Pahang," he said when met at the Aidilfitri Open House of ECRL here today.

Also present was Pahang Menteri Besar Datuk Seri Wan Rosdy Wan Ismail who also presented duit raya to 30 orphans from Permata Al Kauthar Muqarrabin.

Khairi Khalid said out of the total 665 km of ECRL alignment, 231 km are located in Pahang involving about 152 km of level track while the rest are over bridges and through tunnels.

As for the work on bridges, Khairi Khalid said the installation of viaduct beams is progressing well with about 5 km of the bridge route in Pahang done so far.

"There are two beam installation machines called beam launchers, namely in Kuantan for Sungai Kuantan and in Temerloh for work on Sungai Pahang and we expect the bridge to be completed by the end of this year or early 2024," he said.

As for the Genting Twin Tunnel, which will be the longest rail tunnel in Southeast Asia when it is completed, Khairi Khalid said that so far the tunnel excavation that crosses the Titiwangsa Range has reached more than 2.5 km for each tunnel.

The tunnel excavation uses a tunnel boring machine (TBM) as opposed to drilling and blasting methods in other tunnels, started last June and is expected to be completed in the second quarter of 2025. - BERNAMA