EGYPT: President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi has inaugurated the first phase of the 103 km Capital Train ‘light rail transit’ electric suburban railway which is being built to connect Cairo with 10th Ramadan City and the New Administrative Capital.
The ceremony was held on July 3, with passenger services starting the following day.
The 68·8 km first phase starts at an interchange with Cairo Metro Line 3 at the Adly Mansour transport hub east of Cairo and runs largely at-grade eastwards alongside the Ismailia Highway for 28·6 km through Obour, Shorouk and New Heliopolis City to a junction at Badr. The line then splits, with one branch turning north to Knowledge City in 10th Ramadan City, and the other running south to Arts & Culture City in the New Administrative Capital.
There are 12 stations, including seven bridges, three tunnels, two substations and one depot.
The second phase will extend the NAC branch by 18.5 km and four stations, and the third phase will add 16 km and three stations to serve the centre of 10th Ramadan City.
The line has been built using Chinese finance and technology under a US$1·24bn contract signed in August 2017 by the National Authority for Tunnels and a consortium of China Railway Engineering Corp and AVIC International Holding Corp.
Around 20 Egyptian and 15 Chinese companies took part in the project. Adly Mansour station was built by The Arab Contractors and Orascom Construction, and the other stations by The Arab Contractors, Petrojet, Hassan Allam and Concorde.
A joint venture of TSO and Orascom Construction was awarded a US$112·5m subcontract for tracklaying.
CASCO provided the signalling, which it said was the first deployment of CBTC in Egypt. The contract is CASCO’s first full signalling system integration project outside China, and includes 12 years of maintenance.
In 2018 CRRC Qingdao Sifang was awarded a contract to supply 22 six-car electric multiple-units and maintain them for 12 years. The 120 km/h EMUs have a capacity of 2 222 passengers and are designed with wind and sand-resistant components.
In March 2021, National Authority for Tunnels awarded RATP Dev Mobility Cairo a contract to operate and maintain the line for 15 years, with an optional five-year extension.
The line is projected to carry around 340 000 passengers/day when fully operational.
