Salini Impregilo, a specialist in the construction and civil engineering business, has won with a consortium a €186-million contract to design and execute the expansion of the 38-km-long Bicocca and Catenanuova section of a railway line that runs between Palermo and Catania in Sicily, Italy.

The contract was awarded by Rete Ferroviaria Italiana to the consortium Raggruppamento Temporaneo di Imprese (RTI) that includes Salini Impregilo, Astaldi, SIFEL and CLF.

The first results of the project are expected to appear in 2020 with the opening of a line that will allow trains to travel faster than they have previously done, said the company in a statement.

The new section will allow trains to go at speeds of up to 200 km per hour. All of the work is scheduled to be completed by 2022.

Once other projects are finished, it will be possible to travel between Catania and Palermo in less than two hours by 2025, said the statement.

The contract includes a new railway headquarters, the installation of signaling and communication systems, electrical substations to power the trains, the renovation of the Bicocca station and the construction of a new station at Motta Sant’Anastasia, it added.

Earlier this year, Salini Impregilo and its partners won a contract to design and build a section of the Naples-Bari high-speed railway line.-TradeArabia News Service