Minister of Transportation Kamel al-Wazir headed to Spain Sunday to examine ways of delivering the first batch of Talgo trains by the end of 2021.

The deal – worth €226 million – provides supplying Egypt with six trains. Each includes an engine, a head-end power car, a caboose, and five first-class air-conditioned railcars, and eight second-class air conditioned railcars.

The contract signed in 2020 set the delivery date of the first batch for 2021 but a delay was expected because of COVID-19.

The minister noted that starting January, only new and upgraded trains will operate on Egypt’s railroads. He added that work is underway to install turnstile gates at all train stations in order to eliminate the phenomenon of boarding trains without tickets.

Wazir concluded by highlighting that the value of the budget that has been allocated to the rehabilitation of the railway sector, which is LE200 billion.

Earlier this year, the delivery of 110 train engines by General Electric was concluded, while the delivery of 1,300 railcars by Transmasholding is still ongoing.

Source: State Information Service Egypt