Death on the ‘Long Live Egypt’ trains

Three accidents have involved Egypt’s trains in one month, killing and injuring dozens of people, despite the billions of dollars supposedly being spent to improve the railway network that carries one million passengers a day. The second oldest railway network in the world often witnesses deadly accidents due to lack of maintenance, poor safety and security procedures and its old infrastructure.

Despite the improvement plans which aim to double the number of passengers to two million passengers a day, and to reach 13 million tons of goods transported annually by 2030, death still strikes on the trains which are adorned with the colours of the country’s flag and bear the slogan “Long Live Egypt”.

A few days ago, Egyptians woke to the news of a crash between a locomotive and the rear of air-conditioned train No. 1087, near Minya Governorate in southern Egypt.

The crash killed three people, and injured 20 others.

It caused two carriages to fall into the Ibrahimiya Canal, a waterway adjacent to the railway tracks with no barrier of any kind separating them. Photos and videos posted on social media showed fishing boat owners rescuing those who were drowning or were injured, while rescue teams were late in arriving at the accident site.

Preliminary investigations showed that the accident was caused by a malfunction in the signalling system, the causes of which have not yet been revealed, according to local newspapers.

This vital facility suffers from deficiencies in maintenance and modernisation, as well as multiple human errors, which also led to a collision between two trains in Zagazig, in the Sharqia Governorate in Nile Delta, killing four people and injuring about 50 others in September. In this accident, passenger train No. 281, from Zagazig to Ismailia in the north, collided head-on with passenger train No. 336 heading from Mansoura to Zagazig. The two trains ended up on the same track, due to a human error by the switchman, according to statements by the Egyptian Minister of Transport, Kamel El-Wazir.

Wazir holds three ministerial positions: Transport Minister, Industry Minister and Deputy Prime Minister for Industrial Development. In July, he said on TV that he would work from 8am to 3pm at the Ministry of Industry, and from 3pm to 10pm at the Ministry of Transport.

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Last week, a freight train overturned on the Tebbin-Al-Wahat line, near Badrashin, south of Giza, near the capital, after colliding with a loader, which caused the locomotive to overturn and five goods wagons to get derailed.

In 2023, Egypt witnessed 181 accidents on the railway network. According to data from the Central Agency for Public Mobilisation and Statistics, 831 accidents were reported in 2022, 978 were reported in 2021 and there were 898 in 2020. In total, over the course of 10 years between 2014 and 2023, there were 11,695 accidents on the railways, according to official data.

There are no accurate statistics on the number of victims of train accidents in the country, but the most tragic accident was when 361 people were killed after a fire broke out on an Upper Egypt train with passengers heading to celebrate Eid Al-Adha in 2002.

The minister of transport at the time tried to evade responsibility. He was criticised widely.

A recent study indicates that failure to improve the 4,500 railway crossings, of which only 1,332 have been upgraded, is a major reason for the increase in train accidents, according to academic Hamdi Arafa.

The Egyptian Railways Authority says on its website that human error and dangerous passenger activities affect the safety of the system and increases the number of accidents. Such activities include passengers sitting on the edge of the platforms; passengers boarding and getting off trains on the wrong side; people walking on the tracks to move from one platform to another and standing between the carriages and on the sides of the locomotive. There are also car and lorry drivers who do not obey traffic rules when using railway crossings.

An official at the railway authority, who spoke to me on condition of anonymity, highlighted other reasons for the accidents. They include a decline in employees’ efficiency, the lack of maintenance, the lack of advanced communication systems between train crew members (the driver and assistant) and the signal control centre; laxity over safety and security standards; and turning off the automatic train control device (ATC). He also mentioned the lack of surveillance cameras and screens which could allow for monitoring any malfunctions on the tracks that would require the train to stop in order to avoid crashing into another train, for example.

Train driver Mohamed El-Sharkawy reported that his salary is 10,000 Egyptian pounds (about $200) a month, while a switchman gets 6,000 pounds (about $120), with a railway crossing worker being paid 5,000 pounds ($100). He also said that cancelling the monthly incentives of 1,000 pounds ($20) combined with the high cost of living placed great psychological and material burdens on workers, and pushes some to take drugs to cope with the physical exhaustion, preventing them from performing their duties with due care and attention. Minister of Transport Wazir decided recently to double the incentive for train drivers who do not cause any accidents and who keep passengers and trains safe.

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Egypt has allocated 225 billion pounds, about $4.6bn, for a comprehensive plan to improve the railway system from 2014 until 2024. This plan covers locomotives and carriages at a cost of 53bn ($1.1bn); infrastructure at a cost of 105bn pounds (more than $2bn); developing signalling systems at a cost of 50bn pounds ($1bn); production workshops at 15bn pounds ($310 million); and capacity building of employees at a cost of 2bn pounds ($42m), according to official data.

However, journalist Mohamed Amin wonder aloud in his article “Victims of Train Accidents!” in Al-Masry Al-Youm, if the railway network has really been improved. “Where did the billions go so that we would not see any improvement?” he asked. “When exactly will the improvements take place? And how much time do we need before we can get rid of these horrific accidents?”

Opponents doubt that these huge sums have been really spent.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi rejected any spending to improve the railways when he said in May 2017, “Instead of spending 10 billion pounds to improve the railways, we put it in the bank and take a billion pounds in interest.”

The Socialist Popular Alliance Party has demanded that the government should disclose how 64.8bn pounds (more than $1.3bn) has supposedly been spent on updating the signalling system, at a time when frequent train accidents show that most lines are still using the old manual system.

An engineer at the railway authority, who requested anonymity, said that he is updating signalling and communications systems, but it takes years, costs a lot of money, and mostly depends on external loans. He noted that the ATC devices in many trains are old, worn out and have reached the end of their life expectancy; as well as human errors, this explains the many accidents.

He added that automated driving systems must keep up with updates on the ground, including signals, communications and other systems, until all improvements are completed. He pointed out that the German company Siemens is installing electromechanical systems, which include electric traction systems, signals, communications and controls.

It is not clear when the Egyptian government will be finished with the railway improvement plans, especially as it is fully dependent on borrowing funds. And the minister of transport isn’t focused solely on the task in hand, which could mean more accidents and more lives lost on the railway of death.

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