Office National des Chemins de Fer

Rabat Agdal train station. As part of the commissioning of the “Al Boraq” express train, several stations were expanded or newly built.

Office National des Chemins de Fer ( ONCF for short , French for National Railway Office , Arabic المكتب الوطني للسكك الحديدية, DMG al-Maktab al-Waṭanī li-s-Sikak al-Ḥadīdīya ) is the state rail transport and infrastructure company of the Kingdom of Morocco . The ONCF is subordinate to the Ministry of Transport, Logistics and Supply, it operates the entire passenger and freight rail traffic in the country as well as the national rail network. 7,845 employees work for the ONCF, which is headed by General Director Mohamed Rabie Khlie.

history

Map of the rail network in Morocco

The Office National des Chemins de Fer was founded in 1963, a few years after independence from the French colonial power, as a merger of various previously privately operated railway companies:

The ONCF has been wholly state-owned since its inception. It is planned to liberalize access to the Moroccan rail network. In the course of this, the ONCF is to be converted into a stock corporation ( Sociéte Anonyme) and given the new name “Société Marocaine des Chemins de Fer” (SMCF). Implementation is still pending.

It is a member of the International Union of Railways (UIC), the Arab Union of Railways ( Union arabe des chemins de fer , UACF) and the Maghrebian Railway Committee ( Comité du transport ferroviaire maghrébin, CTFM).

Railway network

Passengers at the Marrakech train station

The Moroccan rail network is not particularly well developed relative to the size of the country; it is concentrated in the main areas of the population of Morocco on the Atlantic and Mediterranean coasts. ONCF operates the country's entire rail network, including freight lines to individual companies and production facilities. The entire rail network is standard gauge.

In 2017, the company operated 3815 kilometers of track on 2295 km, of which 64% were electrified. In 2017, 27 million tons were transported in freight traffic and 35 million passengers in passenger traffic. The number of employees was 7761 people.

expansion

An ONCF Alstom RGV2N2 in Tangier

Al Boraq ( The Lightning ) lives up to its name.

In addition to the constant electrification of the line, new high-speed lines are currently planned or under construction: from Tangier via Rabat, Casablanca and Marrakech to Agadir (see LGV Tanger – Kenitra ), as well as from Rabat via Fez to Oujda . The three-track expansion of the Casablanca - Kinetra line was completed in 2018, the first section of the high-speed line from Tangier to Kenitra was completed on November 15, 2018, and Al Boraq trains have been running between Tangier and Casablanca since then.

Operation and rolling stock

The ONCF differentiates its passenger traffic into four types:

Trains Grandes Lignes (day and night long-distance transport)
Trains Navettes Rapides (shuttle service between Casablanca and Rabat)
Transport Urbain (suburban transport in the Casablanca area)
Transport Rail Route (connecting bus services).

The company's own rail vehicles include second-hand vehicles from SNCF stocks and copies of the TGV Duplex . In total in 2017:

230 locomotives
585 passenger cars
5498 freight cars

A former SNCF CC 72000 , now owned by the ONCF as DF 115, with a passenger train at Taourirt
An electric locomotive of the E 1250 series at Sidi Kacem with a passenger train
An ONCF DF 100 resp. 112 with a ballast train at Bab Marzouka
Diesel locomotive DI 500 of the ONCF
Double-decker electric passenger multiple unit of the ONCF Z2M series , identical in construction to the Italian Treno Alta Frequentazione