Translated to Arabic as the (metal
road)
Al-Sikak al-Ḥadīdiyyah
In 1833, Muhammad Ali Pasha
considered building a railway between Suez and Cairo to improve transit between
Europe and India. Muhammad Ali had proceeded to buy the rail when the French
who had an interest in building a canal instead, pressured him to abandon the rail
project.
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| TRACKS MESURMENTS |
In 1851 Muhammad Ali successor
Abbas the First contracted Robert Stephenson to build Egypt's first standard gauge
railway. A “1435 mm gauge” track. (The width from one rail to the other) Broader gauge railways are
generally more expensive to build, but offer higher speed, stability, and
capacity. For routes with high traffic, greater capacity may more than offset
the higher initial cost of construction.
The first section, between
Alexandria on the Mediterranean coast and Kafr el-Zayyat on the Rosetta branch
of the Nile was opened in 1854. This was the first railway in the Ottoman
Empire as well as in Africa and the Middle East. This same year Abbas died and
was succeeded by Sa'id Pasha, in whose reign the section between Kafr el-Zayyat
and Cairo was completed by the year 1856 followed by an extension from Cairo to
Suez in 1858. This completed the first modern transport link between the
Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean, 11 years before Ferdinand de Lesseps
completed the Suez Canal waterway in 1869.
At Kafr el-Zayyat the line between
Cairo and Alexandria originally crossed the Nile with an 80 feet (24 m) car
float. However, on 15 May 1858 a special train conveying Sa'id's heir
presumptive Ahmad Rifaat Pasha fell off the float into the river and the prince
was drowned.
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| EARLY MAP OF TRAIN STATIONS IN THE DELTA |
Stephenson then replaced the car
float with a swing bridge nearly 500 metres (1,600 ft) long. By the end of Sa'id's
reign branches had been completed from Banha to Zagazig on the Damietta branch
of the Nile in 1860, to Mit Bera in 1861 and from Tanta to Talkha further down
the Damietta Nile in 1863.
Sa'id's successor Isma'il Pasha
strove to modernize Egypt and added momentum to railway development. In 1865 a
new branch reached Desouk on the Rosetta Nile and a second route between Cairo
and Talkha was opened, giving a more direct link between Cairo and Zagazig. The
following year a branch southwards from Tanta reached Shibin El Kom. The
network started to push southwards along the west side of the Nile with the
opening of the line between Imbaba near Cairo and Minya in the south in 1867. A short branch
to Faiyum was added in 1868. A line between Zagazig and Suez via Nifisha was completed
in the same year. The following year the line to Talkha was extended to
Damietta on the Mediterranean coast and a branch opened to Salhiya and
Sama'ana.
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| TRAIN TO ALEXANDRIA EARLY 1890'S |
Imbaba had no rail bridge across
the Nile to Cairo until 1891. However, a long line between there and a junction
west of Kafr el-Zayyat opened in 1872, linking Imbaba with the national
network. From Minya the line southwards made slower progress, reaching Mallawi
in 1870 and Assiut in 1874. The rails lines on the West bank reach Nag Hammadi from where it crosses to the east bank of the Nile till Aswan.
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| ROYAL TRAIN |
A shorter line southwards linked
Cairo with Tura / Maadi in 1872 and was extended to Helwan in 1875. In the Nile
Delta the same year a short branch reached Kafr el-Sheikh and in 1876 a line
along the Mediterranean coast linking the termini at Alexandra and Rosetta was
completed.
By 1877, Egypt had a network of
key main lines and the Nile Delta had quite a network, but with this and other
development investments, Isma'il had gotten the country deeply into debt.
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| EARLY EGYPT TRAINS |
For its first 25 years of
operation Egypt's national railway had never even produced an annual report.
Council of Administration with Egyptian, British and French members was then appointed in 1877 to put the railway's affairs in order. They published its
first annual report in 1879, and in the same year, the British Government had
Isma'il Pasha deposed, exiled and replaced with his son Tewfik Pasha.
In 1882,
the British essentially invaded and occupied Egypt since that time until 1956.
With these developments, the
Egyptian Railway Administration's rail network stagnated until 1888, but it
also put its management in much better order. In 1883 the ERA appointed
Frederick Harvey Trevithick, as Chief Mechanical Engineer. Trevithick found a
heterogeneous fleet of up to 246 steam locomotives of many different designs
from very different builders in England, Scotland, France and the USA. This
lack of standardization of locomotives or components complicated both
locomotive maintenance and general railway operation.
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| ALEXANDRIA RAILWAY STATION |
From 1877 to 1888, the ERA
struggled to keep up with even basic maintenance but by 1887 Trevithick managed
to start a program to renew 85 of the very mixed fleet of locomotives with new
boilers, cylinders and motion. For the others he started to replace them with
four standard locomotive types introduced from 1889 onwards: one class of 0-6-0
for freight, one class of 2-4-0 for mixed traffic, one 0-6-0T tank locomotive
for shunting and one class of only ten 2-2-2 locomotives for express passenger
trains. Trevithick ensured that these four classes shared as many common
components as possible, which simplified maintenance and reduced costs still
further.
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| TRAIN TO ASSIUT |
By 1888, the ERA was in better
order and could resume expanding its network. In 1890 a second line between
Cairo and Tura opened. On 15 May 1892 the Imbaba Bridge was built across the
Nile, linking Cairo with the line south following the west bank of the river.
The civil engineer for the bridge was Gustave Eiffel. (It was reformed and
renewed in 1924 which is still the only railway bridge across the Nile in
Cairo.) Cairo's main Misr Station was rebuilt in 1892. The line south was
extended further upriver from Assiut reaching Girga in 1892, Nag Hammadi in
1896, Qena in 1897 and Luxor and Aswan in 1898. With the railroad's completion,
construction began the same year on the first Aswan Dam and the Assiut Barrage,
main elements of a plan initiated in 1890 by the government to modernize and
more fully develop Egypt's existing irrigated agriculture, export potential,
and ability to repay debts to European creditors.
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| EGYPT RAILWAYS MAP |
In 1891, a link line was opened
between Damanhur and Desouk. The line to Shibin El Kom was extended south to
Minuf in the same year and reached Ashum in 1896. By then a line across the Nile
Delta from a junction north of Talkha on the line to Damietta had reached
Biyala. By 1898 this reached Kafr el-Sheikh, completing a more direct route
between Damietta and Alexandria. An important extension along the west bank of
the Suez Canal linking Nifisha with Ismaïlia, Al Qantarah West and Port Said
was completed in 1904. Thereafter network expansion was slower but two short
link lines north of Cairo were completed in 1911 followed by a link between
Zagazig and Zifta in 1914.
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| TRAIN PASSING BY ZAGAZIG |
Sinai
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PALESTINE RAILWAY SYSTEM
FROM CAIRO TO BEIRUT
AND HIGAZ |
The first El Ferdan Railway Bridge
over the Suez Canal was completed in April 1918 for the Palestine Military
Railway. It was considered a hindrance to shipping so after the First World War
it was removed. During the Second World War a steel swing bridge was built in 1942
but this was damaged by a steamship and removed in 1947. A double swing bridge
was completed in 1954 but the 1956 Israeli invasion of Sinai severed rail
traffic across the canal for a third time. A replacement bridge was completed
in 1963 but destroyed in the Six-Day War in 1967. A new double swing bridge was
completed in 2001 and is the largest swing bridge in the World. However, the
construction of the New Suez Canal has since disconnected the Sinai from the
rest of Egypt’s rail network again. Instead of the bridge, two rail tunnels are
planned under the canal, one near Ismailia and one in Port Said.
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TRAIN TICKET FROM
EL KANTARA EGYPT
TO TEL AVIV PALESTINE |
Historically, the Palestine
Railways main line linked Al Qantarah East in Egypt with Palestine and Lebanon. It was
built in three phases during the First and Second World Wars. Commenced in
1916, it was extended to Rafah on the border with Palestine as part of the
Egyptian Expeditionary Force's Sinai and Palestine Campaign against the Ottoman
Empire. The route was extended through to Haifa in Mandate Palestine after
World War I, to Tripoli, Lebanon in 1942 and became a vital part of the wartime
supply route for Egypt.
Many Syro-Lebaneese living in Egypt would board the train from Cairo and travel to Haifa then to Lebanon for the summer vacations departing from the Cairo
rail station for a 24 hours long ride.
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EL-FERDAN THE LONGEST DOUBLE SWING BRIDGE
IN THE WOLD
CROSSING THE SUEZ CANAL |
As a result of the 1946–48 Israeli
War of Independence and subsequent 1948 Arab-Israeli War the Palestine Railways
main line was severed at the 1949 Armistice Line. The 1956 Israeli invasion
severed Sinai's rail link with the rest of Egypt but reconnected its rail link
with Israel. Israel captured a 4211 class 0-6-0 diesel shunting locomotive and
five 545 class 2-6-0 steam locomotives. Israel also captured rolling stock
including a six-wheel coach dating from 1893 and a 30-ton steam crane built in 1950,
both of which Israel Railways then appropriated into its broken down fleet.
Before being forced to withdraw from Sinai in March 1957, Israel systematically
destroyed infrastructure including the railway. By 1963 the railway in Sinai
was reconnected to the rest of Egypt but remained disconnected from Israel.
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| TRAIN STATION IN EGYPT |
In the 1967 Six-Day War, Israel
captured more Egyptian railway equipment including one EMD G8, four EMD G12 and
three EMD G16 diesel locomotives all of which were appropriated into Israel
Railways stock. After 1967 Israel again destroyed the railway across occupied
Sinai and this time used the materials in the construction of the Bar Lev Line
of fortifications along the Suez Canal.
After numerous years' of service
on Israel Railways the Egyptian 30-ton crane, 1893 Belgian 6-wheel coach and
one of the EMD G16 diesels are all preserved in the Israel Railway Museum in
Haifa Museum.
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| OLD LOCOMOTIVE IN MUSEUM |
Egypt's railway museum was built
in 1932 next to Misr Station (now Ramses Station) in Cairo. The museum opened
in January 1933 to mark the city's hosting of the International Railway
Congress. Its stock of over 700 items includes models, historic drawings and
photographs. Among its most prominent exhibits are three preserved steam
locomotives:
(The X-X-X is the design standard called
the Whyte notation for classifying steam
locomotives by wheel
arrangement)
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| A graphic of the Whyte notation, with the wheel-arrangement shown being a 4-8-4. (Four leading wheels, eight drive wheels, and four trailing wheels. |
2-4-2 no. 30, built by Robert
Stephenson and Company in 1862
0-6-0 no. 986, built by Robert
Stephenson and Company in 1861
4-4-2 no. 194, built by the North
British Locomotive Company in 1905 Operations
4-4-0 locomotive number 694: one
of a class of 15 built by the North British Locomotive Company in Scotland for
Egyptian State Railways in 1905-06
In 2005 ENR operated 5,063
kilometres of standard gauge 1,435 mm track. Most of
the rail system is focused on the Nile delta with lines essentially fanning out
from Cairo. In addition, there is a line to the west along the coast that
eventually could link to Libya as it did during World War II. From Cairo goes a
major line south along the east bank of the Nile to Aswan in Upper
Egypt.
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| CAIRO RAILWAY MUSEUM |
Neighbouring Israel uses the same
standard gauge but has been disconnected since 1948. In the South the railway
system of Sudan operates on a narrow gauge and was reached after using the ferry
past the Aswan dam. After the new High dam was build and the Nasser lake was formed the rail system to Sudan was abandoned.
Rail service is a critical part of the transportation
infrastructure of Egypt but of limited service for transit. 63 kilometres of the network was electrified, namely commuter lines between Cairo-Helwan
and Cairo-Heliopolis. In recent years the lines have been replaced by a new metro system and the network extended by many kilometres .
ENR buys locomotives and rail
abroad but passenger coaches are built and refurbished in Egypt by the Société
Générale Egyptienne de Matériel de Chemins de Fer (SEMAF).
Cargo volume transported by ENR is
about 12 million tons annually.
On January 16, 2015 Egyptian
National Railways signed a €100 million contract with Alstom to supply signaling
equipment for the 240 km Beni Suef-Asyut line and maintain services for five
years. Alstom will also provide smartlock electronic interlocking system to
replace the existing electromechanical system, which in turn will increase the
number of trains that operate on the route by more than 80%.
Passenger trains
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Imbaba Train Bridge linking Cairo with Aswan
Bridge build by Mr. Gustave Eiffel |
ENR is the backbone of passenger
transportation in Egypt with 800 million passenger miles annually. Air-conditioned
passenger trains usually have 1st and 2nd class service, while non-air-conditioned
trains have 2nd and 3rd class. Most of the network connects the densely
populated area of the Nile delta with Cairo and Alexandria as hubs. Train fares
in commuter trains and 3rd class passenger trains are kept low as a social
service.
Sleeper trains
The Alexandria–Cairo–Luxor–Aswan
route is served daily in both directions by air-conditioned sleeper trains of
Abela Egypt. This service is especially attractive to tourists who can spend
the night on the train as it covers the stretch between Cairo and Luxor. A
luxury express train also links Cairo with Marsa Matruh towards the Libyan
border.
Data research and Pictures from internet
The earliest evidence of cotton
use in the Indian subcontinent has been found at the site of Mehrgarh and
Rakhigarhi where cotton threads have been found preserved in copper beads;
these finds have been dated to the Neolithic (5th millennium BC). Cotton
cultivation in the region is dated to the Indus Valley Civilization, which
covered parts of modern eastern Pakistan and northwestern India between 3300
and 1300 BC. The Indus cotton industry was well-developed and some methods used
in cotton spinning and fabrication continued to be used until the
industrialization of India. Between 2000 and 1000 BC cotton became widespread
across much of India. For example, it has been found at the site of Hallus in
Karnataka dating from around 1000 BC.
The earliest evidence of cotton
use in the Indian subcontinent has been found at the site of Mehrgarh and
Rakhigarhi where cotton threads have been found preserved in copper beads;
these finds have been dated to the Neolithic (5th millennium BC). Cotton
cultivation in the region is dated to the Indus Valley Civilization, which
covered parts of modern eastern Pakistan and northwestern India between 3300
and 1300 BC. The Indus cotton industry was well-developed and some methods used
in cotton spinning and fabrication continued to be used until the
industrialization of India. Between 2000 and 1000 BC cotton became widespread
across much of India. For example, it has been found at the site of Hallus in
Karnataka dating from around 1000 BC.
