The Ben Thanh-Suoi Tien metro line in Ho Chi Minh City started its trial run today, December 21.
The Ben Thanh-Suoi Tien metro line in Ho Chi Minh City started its trial run on December 21.
According to the Management Authority for Urban Railways, the pilot run for the city's first metro line was carried out on a section of nearly nine kilometres, through five stations in Thu Duc City.
The elevated section is designed for trains to run at a speed of 110 kilometres per hour (kph) but for the test run the train started at a speed of below 40kph.
Passengers on the metro train during the test run
The first metro line has 17 made-in-Japan trains, each with a capacity to transport 930 passengers and each train can travel up to 110 kph above ground and 80 kph underground.
All 17 trains had been tested in Japan in May and then at Long Binh depot in Thu Duc City in August.
The line runs 19.7km between Ben Thanh Market in District 1 and Suoi Tien Theme Park in Thu Duc City. The project was started 10 years ago and is expected to cost over VND43.70 trillion (USD1.82 billion) with funds from Japanese overseas development assistance and Vietnamese counterpart funds.