Egypt to upgrade railways with over 3 bln USD

CAIRO, April 9 (Xinhua) -- Egypt's Minister of Transport Hesham Arafat announced Monday a project to renovate the country's old railway system by 2022, with a total investment of 55 billion Egyptian pounds (about 3.11 billion U.S. dollars).

According to state-run Al-Ahram news website's report, Arafat said that Egypt has a "clear and comprehensive plan" to develop the whole railway system during his visit to Giza railway station on the Sham El-Nessim holiday.

He told reporters that Egypt has signed deals to purchase 100 tractors from General Electric and have the U.S. company overhaul 81 others.

He stressed that Egyptian people will see an upgrade in the railway system which is now in "ailing" condition, adding that the ministry is also planning to sign deals to purchase 1,300 new passenger carriages and 300 cargo ones.

Egypt witnessed a number of deadly train accidents over the past few years in which hundreds were killed and wounded.

On Feb. 28, a train collision killed at least 12 people in the Beheira province north of the capital Cairo.

In August 2017, two trains crashed in the Mediterranean coastal province of Alexandria, leaving at least 49 people dead and more than 100 injured.

Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi urged the government to accelerate the development of the country's railway network to avoid deadly train crashes soon after the train collision in Alexandria.

The worst train accident in Egypt took place in Giza's district of Ayyat in 2002, which killed 350 passengers when a fire broke out in a train coming from Upper Egypt, forcing passengers to hopelessly jump out to survive. Enditem