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Workers have already begun laying the tracks in the desert east of Cairo for Egypt's first high-speed train, which will connect the Red Sea with the Mediterranean Sea in the country's most recent attempt to modernize its transportation system.
The project, described by the Minister of Transport, Kamel al-Wazir, as a "new Suez Canal on rails", is scheduled to be completed in 2026 and will allow the transport of passengers and goods along 660 kilometers in just three hours.
Known as the Green Line, this initiative is the latest in a long list of megaprojects promoted by the government of President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi during the last decade. The emblematic work of this plan is the New Administrative Capital, a city valued at 58 billion dollars and still sparsely populated, located east of Cairo.
In 2021, Egypt signed a $4.5 billion contract with a consortium that includes the German company Siemens to develop the Green Line, which will be the first of three high-speed railway lines that will cross the country. Authorities expect the nearly 2,000-kilometer network to transport up to 1.5 million passengers per day.
The current Egyptian railway network — used daily by around one million people — suffers from serious infrastructure and maintenance deficiencies, which caused nearly 200 accidents last year, according to official figures.
The Green Line will run through the north of the country, from Ain Sokhna, on the Red Sea, to Marsa Matrouh, on the Mediterranean, and will cross two satellite cities of Cairo: the New Administrative Capital, to the east, and 6th of October City, to the west, where the only dry port in Egypt is located.
A Commitment to Urban Planning
According to Tarek Goueili, director of the National Tunnels Authority, the modernized railway network will transport 15 million tons of goods per year, representing 3% of the transit volume recorded in the Suez Canal last year. For its promoters, the Green Line is also a bet in terms of urban planning. "The high-speed line will alleviate the pressure on Greater Cairo and favor the emergence of new development poles," explained Faical Chaabane, from the French company Systra, in charge of the construction of the route. In a station in the middle of the desert that Systra showed to journalists, workers, climbing scaffolding, have erected an imposing geometric roof over six outdoor tracks. Much of the New Administrative Capital surrounding it is still a huge construction site, where government ministries are concentrated and employees commute daily by bus.“Nobody is going to live here. We have built this entire project, but it will be destined for tourism and the transport of goods,” stated Mohamed, one of the station's workers, in statements to the AFP.
With the desert covering most of the country's million square kilometers, the vast majority of Egypt's 108 million inhabitants — the most populous in the Arab world — are concentrated along the Nile River and its delta. Following its inauguration, the Green Line will be followed by the Blue Line, which will cross the Nile valley and connect Cairo with Aswan, and by the Red Line, which will connect the Red Sea cities, Hurghada and Safaga, with Luxor, in the interior of the country.
