Hitachi Rail hands Egypt a control centre for Cairo–Alexandria

Lire en français : Hitachi Rail livre le centre de contrôle de Le Caire–Alexandrie

Trains between Cairo and Alexandria are now dispatched from a single traffic control centre delivered by Hitachi Rail to Egyptian National Railways. The company says the resignalled 208 km corridor can take trains every five minutes instead of ten, at up to 160 km/h.

Hitachi Rail announced the handover of the Cairo Traffic Control Centre in a statement reported by Rail Technology Magazine on 22 August 2025. The centralised traffic control system supervises the 19 stations on the line. The contract dates from 2013 and grew through extensions to more than €100m, according to the company.

The work replaced mechanical and electrical signalling with digital interlockings, new colour-light signals and motorised point machines. Level crossings were rebuilt, new main and secondary signal towers went up, and a fixed and mobile telecoms network now lets drivers talk directly to controllers in an emergency.

Shorter headways, more paths

The headway figure is the one that counts for operations. Hitachi Rail's project page, published in August 2024, says the minimum interval between trains on the corridor fell from ten minutes to five. Halving the headway on a busy main line roughly doubles the number of paths available at peak times, which fits the company's projection that maximum capacity could rise from 140 to 286 trains a day.

The 2025 statement also cites an operational capacity gain of "up to 40%", a smaller figure. The two are not contradictory: one describes what the signalling allows, the other what the railway can run with its current fleet and timetable. Speed figures differ too. The 2025 summary mentions trains running 40 km/h faster, while the 2024 project page gives an increase of 20 km/h to a top speed of 160 km/h. Hitachi quotes a Cairo–Alexandria journey of about two and a half hours.

Room for freight

Spare paths are also meant for goods. Egypt plans 15 daily freight trains on the network by 2030 and 50 by 2060, carrying 18,400 containers a year by rail, Hitachi Rail said, and expects to avoid up to 965,000 tonnes of CO2 over 30 years. On a line that mixes fast passenger services with slower freight, a central controller who sees every train can plan overtakes at stations instead of leaving freight waiting in sidings.

The corridor belongs to a network that dates from 1854, runs to more than 10,000 km and carries about 500 million passengers a year, according to Hitachi Rail. The government launched its modernisation plan in 2017. "Our team has played a critical part in modernising this vital line," said Bruno Teixeira, Hitachi Rail's general project manager in Egypt.

Alexandria will also be served by Egypt's new high-speed network, whose first line is now due to open in July 2027, as set out in our Egypt high-speed rail tracker. On the Cairo–Alexandria line, the next measurable step is ENR's timetable: it will show how many of the 286 daily paths become scheduled trains.

Sources: Hitachi Rail (August 2025); Rail Technology Magazine (22/08/2025); Hitachi Rail project page (02/08/2024); Egyptian Streets (02/10/2026).

Photo: Egyptian National Railways GE ES30ACi locomotive at Alexandria station, April 2023. Abdelrhman 1990, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

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