Africa’s first high speed train will be launched in Morocco in 2018 after conducting one last test next February, state-owned railway operator ONCF said. The latest tests were staged successfully at a speed of 320 km per hour earlier this week, ONCF said in a statement. The TGV has set the target of transporting 6 million passengers a year with departures every hour from Casablanca and Tangier, with the aim to achieve an average occupancy rate of 70%. Morocco bought 12 high-speed trains from France’ s train manufacturer, Alstom. The trains will operate at 320km/h on the high-speed line to achieve a Tangiers – Casablanca journey time of 2h 10min, instead of 4h 45min today.

Source: The North Africa Journal December 29, 2017 12:33 UTC