Egypt’s National Authority for Tunnels (NAT) is developing a 1,870km high-speed rail network to transport passengers and cargo. The project comprises three lines and is expected to cost more than LE350 billion.
German company Siemens Mobility and the NAT signed a contract in early September to build the first phase of 660km. Siemens is partnering on the project with Orascom Construction and the Arab Contractors.
The new high-speed rail network will be a state-of-the-art integrated rail system with high-speed fully electrified main and freight rail lines. The system is designed to reduce energy consumption and decrease carbon emissions by 70 per cent compared to car and bus transportation.
The first line is 660km long and will stretch between the port of Ain Sokhna on the Red Sea and the Mediterranean ports of Marsa Matrouh and Alexandria. It will include 21 stations and is expected to transport more than 30 million people a year, reducing travel times by up to 50 per cent.
The second line, 925km long, will connect 6 October city with Aswan. It will have 28 stations, nine for high-speed trains and 19 for regional trains. The third line, 285km long, will link Qena and Luxor in Upper Egypt to Safaga via Hurghada along the Red Sea coast. It has five stations, three for high-speed trains and two for regional trains, with an interchange between the second and third lines in Qena.
The three lines are branded green, blue, and red, respectively, Ahmed Farouk, managing director of the project, told Al-Ahram Weekly while speaking at one of the sites where a mountain was being blown up to make way for the new rail line.
The third line targets Egypt’s tourism sector and will enable travelers to take one-day excursions to cities such as Luxor, Aswan, and Hurghada, Farouk said. While construction is ongoing on line one, work on the second and third lines is expected to begin in 2022, he added.
The Weekly toured different sites along the line to Ain Sokhna, assisted by Bedouin guides who know their way around the desert. Farouk said work was underway on the green line in four main areas.
The first area includes building railway bridges, and the second includes further work on bridges, tunnels, and culverts. These require technical studies on infrastructure, encroachments, and flood drains in desert areas on the Ain Sokhna, Dabaa, and Marsa Matrouh roads. Flood drains will be constructed to pass under the railway line.
The third area is concerned with stations, infrastructure, operations, and passenger movement. Siemens is handling the fourth area, which is related to installing the rails themselves, connecting the electricity network, and supplying the carriages and wagons.
“Siemens will begin its work when ours ends,” Farouk said. “When the bridges are ready, Siemens will install the rails and the electricity network through the 40 power stations spaced out along the track that are needed to operate two passenger trains at speeds of 250km/h and 160km/h and a freight train to transport goods and containers from Ain Sokhna to industrial zones and Mediterranean ports at a speed of 120km/h,” he added.
“This railway line will be as economically valuable to Egypt as the Suez Canal,” he said.
“After cargo ships arrive at Ain Sokhna, goods will be transported within hours to industrial zones and land and sea ports in Marsa Matrouh, Garboub, and Alexandria, and then on in other vessels leaving for Europe and the Americas,” Farouk said.
“This will enable goods to be transported without the risk of moving them by trucks, which is expensive and harmful to the environment and the economy due to fuel exhaust fumes, road damage, and possible accidents. Transporting cargo by high-speed train reduces energy consumption and accidents by 75 per cent and increases national income,” he added.
“Egypt is investing in a smart transport system and modern electric traction to create a clean and environmentally friendly means of transport that is characterised by speed and safety and that contributes to the development of other fields, including health and education.”
“The system will relieve the pressure on diesel-operated vehicles, alleviating the pressure on the railway network. The blue line starts in 6 October city and ends in Aswan and will be operated in parallel with the existing Cairo-Aswan railway line, which will inevitably lead to alleviating the pressure on the latter and provide an opportunity to develop it and the work on its modern signaling system,” Farouk said.
NEW STATIONS: “The locations of the 21 stations on the green line were chosen according to a study of heavily populated areas and regions expected to be densely populated in the future, such as Alamein city,” Farouk said.
There are 11 stations serving regional trains, which travel at speeds of 160km/h, and they extend from New Cairo’s Mohamed Naguib station, through Helwan, up the Nile all the way to Badrashin, then 6 October, Sphinx, Wadi Al-Natroun, Nubariya, Borg Al-Arab, Stadium, Ameriya, Hammam, and Sidi Abdel-Rahman.
The 10 stations serving the 250km/h train extend from Ain Sokhna, through the New Administrative Capital, Hadaeq October, Sadat, Nubariya, and finally Borg Al-Arab. The latter is a two-way station, one train heading west to Hammam and Alamein, and another heading east to Dabaa and Ras Al-Hekma, Farouk said.
The new railway network connects the whole of Egypt via stations that can be used to change from one train to another, whether a high-speed train, a monorail, or a light railway. Passengers will be able to switch from the high-speed train at the New Administrative Capital station to the light train coming from the Adli Mansour station or switch from the monorail in 6 October to the high-speed train in Badrashin.
They will be able to get on the high-speed train from Upper Egypt to Ain Sokhna, Alexandria, Alamein, and Marsa Matrouh or the monorail to 6 October without the need to use buses or cars. Overall, the new rail network will connect these cities through a mode of transport that saves time, decreases traffic jams in Greater Cairo, and provides services in new areas.
There are three patterns used for stations on the first line: those for the high-speed trains, regional stations, and those at the start and end of the line, Farouk said. The latter are located in Ain Sokhna, Alexandria, and Marsa Matrouh. “Their design takes a different form, as they are more spacious and include garages and a mall. The outer design of all the stations takes after Pharaonic architectural designs. The names of 85 per cent of the stations have already been selected by the project’s consultant.”
The country is now racing against time to finish the first line of the new network by 2024, which means that construction begins on a section as soon as its design is finalised, Farouk said. Some 55,000 workers and engineers are working on the first line according to a tight schedule so that Siemens can start its technical work on every 50km of the line that is finished and each phase at a time.
The New Administrative Capital station has been designed in line with the large central stations, especially as it combines the high-speed line and the light railway coming from the Adli Mansour station and passing through the Badr, Shorouk, and Obour cities before it reaches the Administrative Capital and government district.
It intersects with the monorail at Capital Station 1 and then passes through the Cathedral and Station 2 stations before crossing the upper bridge of Ain Sokhna Road to reach the high-speed station in the New Administrative Capital, Farouk added.
About 15 per cent of the work on the New Administrative Capital station has been finished, he said. Construction work on four other stations is also underway, while digging works are being carried out at six stations west of the Nile starting from Badrashin, where the high-speed tracks will run parallel to the Cairo-Alexandria Desert Road.
Emadeddin Nabil, a consultant on the high-speed train project, told the Weekly while following up on work at New Cairo’s Mohamed Naguib station that the design standards for the train to reach its full speed of 250km/h had been reviewed in France.
Because of the different nature of the terrain on which the line is being constructed, ranging from hills, mountains, slopes, and valleys, the vertical gradient is set at one m every 100 m, which is different from trains that operate on even ground, where the gradient can reach seven per cent, Nabil added.
The line connecting Ain Sokhna and Marsa Matrouh is divided into four sections: from Ain Sokhna to the New Administrative Capital; from the New Administrative Capital to Helwan; from 6 October city to Wadi Al-Natroun; and from Borg Al-Arab to Alamein. The roads adjacent to the train tracks are being refurbished, while power stations to feed the track and operate the trains are being set up every 10km.
WORK ON SITE: At the Ain Sokhna site, a group of contractors are overseeing the work of excavation and backfilling.
Mohamed Nasser, a contractor from Ismailia, said he was using a loader and a bulldozer and was working for a contracting company to lay the train track. He told the Weekly that he had earlier worked on road construction in Saudi Arabia, but that his work had stopped due to the coronavirus pandemic. Work in Egypt had not stopped, however, but instead had expanded because of the country’s national projects, including the high-speed train.
Nasser was working on an area of 5km of the train track, excavating and backfilling to a height of eight m. He is required to finish 50m a day. Meanwhile, Mansour Saad, a labourer from Suez, said he used to work in quarries before he applied for a security job on the high-speed train project.
During a tour of the work from Helwan to Ain Sokhna, minister of transport Kamel Al-Wazir said the project would serve all citizens, both rich and poor, and nationwide. 20 trains would be operated on each of the three lines — 10 high speed and 10 regional, he said. A high-speed train that can transfer cargo of up to 20 million tons will also be operated.
The cargo trains will connect ports, logistics areas, land ports, and industrial zones all over Egypt, Al-Wazir said.
More than 120 Egyptian companies are working on the excavation and backfilling work. When Siemens does its part of the work, over 100 Egyptian companies will also be subcontracted to do electromechanical work, he added.
Each train on the new lines is designed to transport 1,000 passengers per hour, with each comprising four passenger carriages with the middle two made up of two floors. Egypt is working on signing a deal with Siemens to handle the second and third lines, Al-Wazir said.
Meanwhile, there is also the new monorail project, the first mass-transit link between Greater Cairo, the New Administrative Capital, and 6 October City and extending for almost 100km, making it the longest monorail system in the world.
The project will involve the construction of two lines. The first will extend for 56km from eastern Cairo to the New Administrative Capital, and the second, 43km long, will connect 6 October city and Giza.
The first line is set for completion by the end of 2022 and the second by April 2023. When completed, the new monorail will be a fast, safe, and eco-friendly mode of transport.
*A version of this article appears in print in the 2 December, 2021 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly.
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