ERA to purchase 12 rail test machines

CAIRO - 8 July 2019: The Egyptian Railway Authority (ERA) needs 12 rail test machines to detect and repair defects in railroads, an official source told Egypt Today on Monday revealing that contracts to purchase eight of those are being finalized.

ERA will receive four rail test machines worth €8.5 million by the end of 2020 supplied by an Austrian company with which a contract was signed a few months ago.

The machines will enable the authority to better diagnose defects in the railroads which would increase the safety, and inhibit derailment accidents.

The latest derailment accident occured in July 2018 in Giza’s al-Marazeeq railway station, and it led to the injury of 57 people. A year earlier, two trains crashed in Alexandria leaving around 20 dead and dozens injured, according to the director of Ambulance Authority in Western Delta Mohamed Abu Homs.

Earlier this year, a train, with no driver on board, moved at an extremely high speed and crashed into the platform's buffer stop at Cairo's busiest and main railway station, located in Ramses district. The collision caused an explosion of the fuel tank and triggered a huge blaze, leaving 20 people dead, and 43 injured.

The Ministry of Transportation is implementing plan to rehabilitate the railway sector by developing signal systems, replacing and maintaining the railcars and railroads, and modernizing the stations.