The 20-day test run of the 13-kilometer Cat Linh-Ha Dong urban railway line in Hanoi was initiated on Saturday.

The trains will be operated continuously from 5:00 am to 11:00 pm daily between December 12 and 31.

About six to nine trains will run along the railway on a daily basis. They will stop for 30 seconds at each station.

A journey starts every six to seven minutes, or every two to three minutes during rush hours.

During the pilot phase, Vietnamese employees will be tasked with working in control rooms, ticket offices, maintenance units, and on the train platforms, as well as with operating electronic boards and loudspeakers.

More than 600 employees will work in two shifts every day, while nearly 200 Chinese experts will represent the Chinese contractor to supervise the process.

According to the Railway Project Management Committee under the Ministry of Transport, the test run is aimed at assessing the safety of the railway system and the operational capacity of all employees.

This is a mandatory step in the safety assessment process performed by the ACT consultant unit.

An independent consultant consortium is expected to issue a safety certificate for the project in January 2021 based on the result of the test run.

The Ministry of Transport will then hand over the management and operation of the system to Hanoi authorities.

Stretching 13 kilometers, the elevated railway runs from Cat Linh Station in downtown Dong Da District to Yen Nghia Station southwest of Ha Dong District.

The project saw its investment cost ballooning to VND18 trillion (US$868 million) from the initial estimate of VND8.7 trillion ($552.8 million).

Work on the railway began in October 2011 and was initially scheduled for completion in 2013.

However, several hurdles, including official development assistance (ODA) loan disbursement issues with China that were only resolved in December 2017, have stalled it for years.

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