CAIRO: Egypt’s rail system aims to accommodate up to 2 million passengers per day under new government plans.
On Sunday, the Egyptian Railways Authority will roll out a new fleet of Spanish Talgo trains on the Upper Egypt line.
Authority head Mohamed Amer told Arab News: “The Spanish Talgo trains constitute a huge quantum leap in the history of trains because they are similar to the trains operating in European countries.”
He added that the Talgo train features advanced technology, comfort for passengers and is designed to maintain stability through its aluminum carriages.
In addition, the train’s fuel efficiency will aid in Egypt’s environmental ambitions, Amer said.
Among other features, there are display screens for each chair in first-class carriages and central screens in second-class carriages.
The Talgo trains are equipped with surveillance cameras and a monitoring room.
The authority’s efforts to develop Egypt’s railways extend beyond new deploying new trains, Amer said, with ambitious daily and annual passenger targets being set.
In 2014, the rail system transported 900,000 passengers per day.
A report by the National Railways of Egypt said a development system is working to increase daily passenger transport to 1.5 million people per day by 2024 and 2 million by 2030.
There are also plans to raise the cargo transport capacity to 13 million tons in 2030, compared to 4.5 million tons in 2014.
Egypt targeting 2m rail passengers per day
https://arab.news/yaqej
Egypt targeting 2m rail passengers per day
- On Sunday, the Egyptian Railways Authority will roll out a new fleet of Spanish Talgo trains on the Upper Egypt line
- Among other features, there are display screens for each chair in first-class carriages and central screens in second-class carriages
Landmine explosion in Sudan kills 9, including 3 children
- “Nine people, three of them children, were killed by a mine explosion while they were in a tuk-tuk,” a medical source at Al-Abbasiya hospital said
KHARTOUM: A land mine explosion killed nine people in Sudan on Sunday, including three children, as they were riding in an auto-rickshaw along a road in the frontline region of Kordofan, a medical source told AFP.
The war between the regular army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which began in April 2023, has left Sudan strewn with mines and unexploded ordnance, though the explosive that caused Sunday’s deaths could also have dated back to previous rebellions that have shaken South Kordofan state since 2011.
“Nine people, three of them children, were killed by a mine explosion while they were in a tuk-tuk,” a medical source at Al-Abbasiya hospital said.
The vehicle was reduced to “a metal carcass,” witness Abdelbagi Issa told AFP by phone.
“We were walking behind the tuk-tuk along the road to the market when we heard the sound of an explosion,” he said. “People fell to the ground and the tuk-tuk was destroyed.”
Kordofan has become the center of fighting in the nearly three-year war ever since the RSF forced the army out of its last foothold in the neighboring Darfur region late last year.
Since it broke out, Sudan’s civil war has killed tens of thousands of people and forced 11 million to flee their homes, triggering a dire humanitarian crisis.
It has also effectively split the country in two, with the army holding the north, center and east while the RSF and its allies control the west and parts of the south.
