High-speed train will connect the Red Sea to the Mediterranean

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The Green Line, as it is known, is the latest in a series of megaprojects carried out over the past decade by the government of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. The crown jewel of this infrastructure project is the still sparsely populated New Administrative Capital, east of Cairo, built at a cost of 58 billion US dollars (around 320 billion reais).

In 2021, Egypt signed a $4.5 billion contract with a consortium including Germany’s Siemens to build the Green Line, the first of three high-speed rail lines planned for the country. Authorities expect this nearly 2,000 km network to be able to transport 1.5 million people per day.

Egypt’s current rail network, used daily by a million people, suffers from infrastructure and maintenance deficiencies that will cause nearly 200 accidents in 2024, according to official data.

The Green Line will cross the north of the country, from Aïn Sokhna, on the Red Sea, to Marsa Matrouh, on the Mediterranean, passing through two satellite cities of Cairo: the New Administrative Capital, to the east, and the 6th of October City, to the west, where Egypt’s only dry port is located.

According to Tarek Goueili, director of the Tunnels Authority, Egypt’s modernized railway network will transport 15 million tonnes of goods per year, or 3% of the volume that passes through the Suez Canal each year. The Green Line is also an important urban planning initiative.

“The high-speed line will alleviate pressure on Greater Cairo and promote the emergence of new growth poles,” commented Faical Chaabane, of the French company Systra, responsible for building the railway.

In a deserted station that Systra showed to journalists, workers erected an imposing geometric roof over six tracks. Much of the new administrative capital is still under construction and workers arrive daily by bus.

“No one will live here. We built this whole project, but it will only be used for tourists and goods,” Mohamed, a construction worker at the station, told AFP.