The Definitive Guide to Living in the Capital , Cairo , Egypt

Engineering has become a trending and critical theme in Egypt over the past few months. Thanks to civil engineering, as well as electrical, mechanical, and so many other branches, several structures have cemented (pun totally intended) a permanent spot in Egyptian history. This past month alone, we’ve discussed the Rod Al Farag Bridge and the new Canadian university that is to be built in the Capital. Currently, Egypt is considering a proposal, not for a building, but a new means of transportation.

Last week, Egypt Today announced that a proposal, submitted by an unnamed Chinese company, to establish a monorail line in Sharm El Sheikh is being considered. Upon receipt of the offer, Secretary-General of South Sinai governorate, Nader al-Ashmawi, ordered the formation of a technical committee, including all concerned authorities, to study it, and agreed on a future meeting with the representatives as soon as an analytical report is finalised. That was all the information reported on the matter, but it intrigued us to check up other monorails in our beloved nation.

We first came across an article, dating back to June 2018, where Ahram Online shared some exciting news that Egypt’s first monorail was 40 per cent complete. The monorail is 6 km in length, carried out by the Arab Contractors and Orascom Construction, and extends from Cairo’s Heliopolis Hisham Barakat station to Adly Mansour station in 10th of Ramadan City.

This year, in January, Deputy Minister of Transport, Amr Shaat, announced that the government offered a tender to set up two monorail lines. The first is a 52-km-long line, linking the New Administrative Capital with East Cairo and downtown, and a second one connecting 6th October City with Giza through a 35-km-network. The two monorail projects, which will have 27 trains, will be able to transport around 48,000 passengers per hour in each direction, with a journey time of 35 minutes. He added that three international companies had already submitted their bids for the project: Canadian, Chinese and Malaysian companies.

This won’t be the first time for Egypt and China to work hand in hand. And so, we optimistically predict a monorail at the southern tip of the Sinai Peninsula very soon.