Train Crash Alexandria

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Train Crash Alexandria

Post by HEPZIBAH »

Breaking News.

(Posted on the L4U Facebook group and translated from there. )

Home Urgent News
West Delta Ambulance: 20 dead and 50 injured so far in a collision accident Alexandria
Friday, 11 August 2017 03:34 PM
West Delta Ambulance: 20 dead and 50 injured so far in a collision accident Alexandria
Collision trains

The lake - Jamal Abou El Fadl

Dr. Mohamed Abu Homs, director of ambulance in West Delta for the seventh day The number of injured in a train accident in Alexandria 50 injured and 20 dead so far and is currently limiting the number of victims and injured by a collision in two trains in Khurshid province of Alexandria, where the collision of a train coming from Cairo and the next coming from Port Said, .

Mohammadi Hegazy, Undersecretary of the Ministry of Health in Alexandria, said that a number of casualties and dozens of injured were being counted as a result of the collision of two trains.

Hijazi said for the seventh day that the transfer of bodies and wounded through ambulances to hospitals Kafr El Dawar and Alexandria.

Hijazi said that the state of emergency has been lifted in all hospitals and many ambulances have been dispatched to transport the injured and the victims.

Major General Fuad al-Ghunaimi, director of the Civil Protection Department of the Alexandria Security Directorate, said that he and a number of children's cars went to the crash headquarters to try to lift the train cars to try to rescue the passengers.

http://www.youm7.com/story/2017/8/11/

Updated
ReutersFriday, 11 August 2017
21 people were killed and 55 injured in a train carsh in Alexandria.
Last Update: Friday, 11 August 2017 KSA 16:58 - GMT 13:58


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Re: Train Crash Alexandria

Post by DJKeefy »

Egypt train crash kills 36, injures more than 100.

Two trains collided in Egypt's coastal city of Alexandria on Friday killing 36 people and injuring more than 100 others, a health ministry spokesman said.

The crash at 2:15 p.m. (1215 GMT) near the suburban Khorshid station on the route to Cairo, derailed the engine of one train and two cars of the other, the Egyptian Railway Authority said.

14801 14802 14803
A railroad switching error was the most likely cause of the collision, a security source. He gave no further details.

State newspaper al-Ahram said 36 bodies had arrived at hospital morgues in Alexandria province. Public prosecutor Nabil Sadek ordered an urgent investigation, it said.

A medical official told state TV some wounded people were still stuck in the trains.

Footage on state television showed dozens of people crowding around the damaged train cars, with bodies strewn on the ground.

"The train I was riding was going very quickly," said passenger Moumen Youssef. "I found myself on the floor. When we came out, we found four train cars crushed and a lot of people on the ground."

In 2012, 50 people - mostly children - were killed when a train crashed into a school bus south of Cairo, further inflaming public anger at authorities over Egypt's antiquated transport network.

Source: Reuters
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Re: Train Crash Alexandria

Post by newcastle »

It's not even shocking anymore.

An article last September highlights some of the issues

Problems plague Egypt’s roads, rails

CAIRO — Two horrific accidents on the same day in Egypt earlier this month have brought transportation safety into question as authorities examine numerous flaws in the system. Officials claim those problems range from poor maintenance to drug-addicted drivers to unqualified employees hired through nepotism.

Summary⎙ Print Egypt's railroad safety is under discussion following recent train accidents.
Author Sarah El ShalakanyPosted September 18, 2016
TranslatorMuhammed Hussein Tal'at

A bus and a truck collided Sept. 7 south of Cairo, leaving 22 people dead. Just a few hours later, train No. 80 from Cairo to Aswan derailed and three cars overturned, leaving five passengers dead and 31 injured, according to a statement from the Ministry of Health.

The train derailment took place at Al-Ayat, Giza, which is known as the “level crossing of death,” as the number of accidents there is high. The most famous crash was that of the “Upper Egypt train” in February 2002. Fire broke out on board train No. 832 from Cairo to Aswan, leaving 361 dead. It was described as one of the deadliest accidents in the history of railroads. Mohamed Ibrahim El Demery, the transportation minister at the time, was forced to resign as a result.

“I boarded the train because the ticket was cheap. Before Al-Ayat station, we felt a strong shock, then the vehicles overturned,” Fathy Mahmoud, one of the 2002 crash survivors, recalled in a recent phone interview on a TV show.

After the recent accidents, some officials made statements that angered Egyptians.

These included the government saying, as usual, that it would offer reparation in the amount of just 35,000 Egyptian pounds ($3,941) to the families of the dead and 12,000 pounds ($1,351) to those injured.

Gen. Medhat Shousha, the head of the Egyptian Railway Authority (ERA), said the day after the derailment, “Accidents in Al-Ayat have nothing to do with flaws in the railways, but they rather happen as a result of chance circumstances. The authority conducts studies after every accident to know the reason and help solve the problem so that it does not happen again.”

Earlier in the year, Gen. Adel Turk, the head of the General Authority for Roads, Bridges and Land Transport, had told daily Youm7, “Broken roads force drivers to slow down, which helps reduce accidents.”

According to the World Health Organization, Egypt ranks No. 10 among the countries with the most road accidents. And according to an ERA report, the total number of train accidents in the past five years was 4,777.

The August report by the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS) said there were 14,500 road accidents in 2015, causing 25,500 deaths. Human error represents 64% of the causes of road accidents, followed by the technical condition of vehicles (21.9%) and road conditions (2.4%). The minimum economic cost for accidents totals 30.2 billion pounds ($3.4 billion); that figure is expected to reach 31 billion pounds ($3.5 billion) in 2020, CAPMAS reported.

However, Gen. Magdy El Shahed, the former head of the Central Traffic Department, disputed some of those figures, which he said are based on incorrect statistics from misleading official reports.

“Egypt ranks first among all countries of the world in the number of casualties and injuries of road accidents. The official numbers announced about accidents are not correct, as the real numbers could be double those made public. Official reports are based on accidents reported to the police, which only represent about 20% of accidents, as most victims only file a report to receive compensation,” Shahed told Al-Monitor.

“One catastrophic flaw in the traffic law is that it allows [for resolutions] when drivers do not have licenses, without the need to file reports, and the administrative measures are canceled once the party that is at fault pays half the minimum fee,” Shahed said.

Another flaw that could be considered catastrophic is that some train conductors use narcotics, endangering their passengers’ lives. Conductors should be subject to random, unannounced drug tests, Gamal Oqba, the deputy head of the Manpower Committee of the House of Representatives, told the Parlmany news website Sept. 7.

Sometimes, neglected routes and equipment are to blame, according to Hassan Abdelzaher Mahdy, a road and traffic expert at the Egyptian Authority for Roads.

“The system suffers from negligence and lack of periodic maintenance for main roads and trains. The flawed system of transportation requires rehabilitation of the roads and railways and holding those responsible for the negligence accountable,” Mahdy said.

Other preventable conditions also contribute to accidents.

“Al-Ayat level-crossing [sees] many violations by the families who reside there, as they build houses near the rails, which must be completely clear so as not to cause any malfunction to the movement of trains,” Mahdy added. “ERA safety measures are lacking, and the signaling system requires improvement so that we can reduce the human element and replace the workers at train switches with automated signaling systems.”

Mahdy called for reducing the number of train runs, which range from 600 to 936 every day.

He added this startling estimation, “The ERA operates with about 80,000 employees who are not qualified to work and who were hired through nepotism and cronyism, while it could be operated with only 6,000 employees.”

For his part, Gen. Sayyed Teeama, a lawmaker and the head of the Transportation Committee in the House of Representatives, told Al-Monitor, “The system of transportation suffers from severe negligence and statements by its administration are contradictory. They claim that the systems of switching have become automatic, while they are still done manually.”

Teeama said, “We discussed the problems with the heads of the ERA to find solutions. However, they always demand an increase in the price of tickets and claim that their problems are only financial, without proposing any ideas regarding safety measures or developing and maintaining the rail lines and trains.”

He added, “If the situation continues this way without a specific vision to enhance the roads and railways, officials should be dismissed and the ERA should be sold to investors who could work on developing it.” He said the device that controls the rail crossing at Al-Ayat has not been functioning for years.

Shahed said in this regard, “Accidents … will increase, given the negligence from which the Road Authority and the Railway Authority suffer — and given the catastrophic flaws in the traffic law, especially since both agencies only think about money.”

He added, “The minister of transportation knows very well that the trains are not safe. Still, he only calls for raising ticket prices and ensuring maintenance of rest stops.”

http://al-monitor.com/pulse/en/original ... blems.html
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Re: Train Crash Alexandria

Post by Major Thom »

Seems like someones been to school and recognised Cronyism and Nepatism is the word in Egypt instead of experience. The Rail Authority should now be closed for a thorough investigation. Oh! May e not, the system will be closed for years, due to investigations taking so long. It may be investigation departments also suffer Cronyism and Nepatism too. Its been known for years Nepatism and Cronyism is rife in Egypt and is put above experience, thats maybe the biggest reason the Country is stagnant, ans not moving forward, I am sure you fisa applicants have a story to tell.
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Re: Train Crash Alexandria

Post by Dusak »

They have now upped it to $5,000 a piece. It stated on the news that one of the trains had stopped dead on the track due to a mechanical fault. Why then, did the driver not radio through to possibly prevent this crash, or do they not have radios in the cabs?
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Re: Train Crash Alexandria

Post by newcastle »

Dusak wrote:They have now upped it to $5,000 a piece. It stated on the news that one of the trains had stopped dead on the track due to a mechanical fault. Why then, did the driver not radio through to possibly prevent this crash, or do they not have radios in the cabs?
I'm not sure they do.

I thought each section of track was "locked" when a train entered, and not "opened" for another train until the first had exited, so what has gone wrong here is a bit of a mystery.

No doubt an enquiry will determine the cause....or maybe it won't :urm:
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Re: Train Crash Alexandria

Post by Hafiz »

A lot of stories in Egypt don’t make sense.

Al Ahram reports that the train crash: “The transport ministry said in an official statement that the train coming from Cairo to Alexandria crashed into the back of the train coming from Port Said to Alexandria, which was stationary at Khorsid station”

It then says: “The driver of the Cairo-Alexandria train has surrendered himself to police and has been transferred to El-Raml police station in Alexandria pending investigations”

Tell me, if train A crashes into the back of stationary train B with such force as to kill scores, how could the driver of train A be alive let alone well enough to turn himself into police?

Maybe he wasn’t driving the train at the time/was elsewhere on the train other than in the driver’s cab? Could driver’s cabs in Egyptian trains be other than at the front of the train?

http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent ... in-Eg.aspx

I would have thought that the driver of the stationary train would be of interest.

What is no mystery are the ‘flood’ of ‘world leaders’ who have offered their condolences to the President of the Republic. Significantly, Tunisia, Saudi, Sudan, most of the Gulf, Turkey, Libya and Lebanon are missing.
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Re: Train Crash Alexandria

Post by Major Thom »

They do have radios in the cabs, it was reported he was listening to Crash Bang Wallop! :lol: :lol:
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Re: Train Crash Alexandria

Post by Yildez »

Major Thom wrote:They do have radios in the cabs, it was reported he was listening to Crash Bang Wallop! :lol: :lol:

People have died, many have serious injuries, and you think it's appropriate to make jokes about it? SHAME ON YOU.
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Re: Train Crash Alexandria

Post by Dusak »

Hafiz wrote:A lot of stories in Egypt don’t make sense.

Al Ahram reports that the train crash: “The transport ministry said in an official statement that the train coming from Cairo to Alexandria crashed into the back of the train coming from Port Said to Alexandria, which was stationary at Khorsid station”

It then says: “The driver of the Cairo-Alexandria train has surrendered himself to police and has been transferred to El-Raml police station in Alexandria pending investigations”

Tell me, if train A crashes into the back of stationary train B with such force as to kill scores, how could the driver of train A be alive let alone well enough to turn himself into police?

Maybe he wasn’t driving the train at the time/was elsewhere on the train other than in the driver’s cab? Could driver’s cabs in Egyptian trains be other than at the front of the train?

http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent ... in-Eg.aspx

I would have thought that the driver of the stationary train would be of interest.

What is no mystery are the ‘flood’ of ‘world leaders’ who have offered their condolences to the President of the Republic. Significantly, Tunisia, Saudi, Sudan, most of the Gulf, Turkey, Libya and Lebanon are missing.
All trains, as far as I know, are fitted with a dead mans switch, [no pun intended] This means that if the driver removes his hand from the control lever, Say in the event of a heart attack, the trains emergency brakes come into affect, first slowing the train until a full stop. I know Egypt lacks the full kit at times, but find it hard to believe that they do not incorporate this devise on theirs... but then again...
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Re: Train Crash Alexandria

Post by Hafiz »

People make too much of what is wrong in Egypt.

Sure the rail system is badly managed, badly maintained and like everything else in Egypt nothing ever gets finished.

But all of that is so boring and the current deaths need to be considered against all the good Egypt rail 'news'. :roll:

Lots of new things being built. Shiny new things that won’t need maintenance for a few years and will meanwhile ‘manage themselves’.

The future will be so amazing!

Here is what the government has already announced:

1. Euro14.4 billion in rail investment.
2. Three high speed rail lines including from Luxor to Cairo – imagine 3! Including 1 from Luxor to Hurghada.
3. The rail investment will ‘cause’ tourism to increase to 30 million a year in 7 years – that is a 300% increase.
4. The rail line to Luxor will carry 3.4 million tourists a year and the Hurghada line 1.5 million. Assuming half come during the 3 month high season, thats about 10,000 per day which is considerably more than the total hotel bedrooms in Luxor - assuming they stay only one night. Another 4,000 a day on the train from the coast - discounted by 50% for the return journey. There will be no room for the fly-ins. :roll:
5. A new Cairo underground line to the airport.
6. An 8,725 square metre shopping mall connected to a railway station at Alexandria port aimed at tourists. Sure to attract a lot of tourists to shopping sprees in Alex. :?
7. New freight lines to Damietta and Safaga.

All of this is to be done in the next few years.

There are also billions going into the Cairo metro as we speak and new above ground elevated light rail for the nicer suburbs.

Don’t believe me, believe the Minister and all the $000000’s in his press release. https://www.thenational.ae/business/egy ... re-1.81746

Interestingly, the government will fund none of this. It will all be privately, probably overseas, owned. That will mean increased debt and the usual argy bargy about tax holidays, free land, cheap energy/oil/gas, ‘facilitation payments’, commercial security arrangements with those most ‘qualified’, introduction fees, the need for expensive local ‘advice’ etc. The same Cairo companies and banks that did all this for Mubarak are still prospering and waiting to do ‘their thing’ all over again.

I hope Siemans and other western executives have boned up on the criminal provisions of their own overseas bribery legislation. Fortunately the Chinese have none, so expect them to win most of the ‘contracts’.

Significantly Egypt has no Public Private Partnership legislation for such investments nor experience or systems for determining the rate of return/prices for these monopolies. Indeed Egypt has no monopolies, trade practices or competition legislation. I mention this because the Minister said: “returns of 11 per cent over its lifespan” and ruled out something he called “compulsory pricing”. Looks like the locals are going to pay multinationals an unbelievable profit for their risk.

My guess is that all the new investment in the energy sector is on the same basis which either means unbelievable future increases in prices for users or unsustainable government subsidies. This is because these infrastructure builders are really good at building ‘gold plated’ infrastructure particularly if their legislated profits are based on the level of investment. The more they invest the more they get paid – doesn’t matter whether anyone uses the infrastructure or not.

On the other hand there are any number of UN and other studies saying that a few billion in infrastructure upgrades, firing half the bureaucrats, proper training, interim overseas management and a few other things would deliver a huge bang for bucks. This smaller investment wouldn’t put so much pressure on prices or lead to repatriation of profits. But its less glamorous. The sale of the whole system to the private sector might not be a bad idea and would force the investors to put some skin in the game but in a country that wants control that’s not an option .

As always Egypt goes for ‘big is best’, ‘new is nicer’ and ‘quick avoids quibbles’. As always the argument is ‘build the infrastructure and the customers will come’. Never once does the Minister mention ‘needs’ or demonstrated demand – or indeed getting the current system to run efficiently.

On a related matter, on which the numbers don’t add up, GE will ‘spend’ $US575 million to supply 100 locomotives to Egypt including a 15 year service and parts agreement. This must be the best deal in history – a locomotive for $US5.75 million serviced over 15 years. Unbelievable. https://www.thenational.ae/business/gen ... ay-1.25911

There was a previous post about an existing rail line outside Hurghada. I think Newcastle said that it was a narrow gauge commercial line. There are several large scale, non-narrow guage, lines that have been left to rot for a generation. Incriminatingly, here is the rail map produced by the National Railways of Egypt.
Image

Note the (alleged) long line west of Cairo, the line west of Qena and the North Coast line. Is there an actual working rail line to the Fayoum? The map also says there is already an eastern line from the Nile to to Safaga but this can't be right because the Minister says that some nice multinationals are yet to build it. Alternately the map “spreads false news”.

As ever management or at least sustained management of the rail system might be an issue. Here is a list of the Ministers for the past few years. The very recently removed Transport Minister, Hesham Arafat was appointed, with no prior government or administrative experience in February 2017. He replaced Galal El-Saeed who held office for 10 months, His predecessor, Saad El-Geyoushi, held office for less than 7 months, and his predecessor, Hany Dahy, was appointed in June 2014 and held office for 14 months. The previous Minister, Ibrahim El-Demery, held office for 4 months which might not have been a bad thing because: “His first term was from 1999 to 2002. He was removed from office after an overcrowded train caught fire in Feburary 2002, killing 373, in Egypt’s worst train disaster.” Significantly he was reappointed as Transport Minister 2 further times after the dead were buried. The previous Minister, Dr. Rashad Al Matainy, seems to have held office for either 17 or 19 months. Significantly they were all engineers, not professional managers, let alone business managers which comes as no surprise in a country that worships engineers. In the nature of things the real power in these revolving-door Ministries is exercised by deputies, who generally aren’t civilians, although no information is available on who they actually are.

Whilst the most recent deaths are sad and deplorable, I think its surprising that things are not a lot worse.
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Re: Train Crash Alexandria

Post by newcastle »

***STOP PRESS***

Regarding exciting new rail projects :

Egypt is set to embark on a $255 million electric train project that will run to the country's planned new administrative capital, which officials say will save millions of dollars in fuel subsidies and reduce traffic, state news agency MENA reported.

http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent ... -new-.aspx
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Re: Train Crash Alexandria

Post by Horus »

Oooh look! a flying pig :lol:
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Re: Train Crash Alexandria

Post by newcastle »

Horus wrote:Oooh look! a flying pig :lol:
Frankly, I'd rather board a flying pig than a high speed Egyptian train - like the one planned for Hurghada-Luxor :urm:

Not that, in my lifetime, the possibility is likely to materialise.
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Re: Train Crash Alexandria

Post by Hafiz »

High speed trains are always very expensive to build, run and buy tickets on and only make financial sense connecting major cities and handling daily high volumes of well heeled travellers.

How it would financially work between Cairo and Luxor and for a tourist season that is only a small part of the year would be questions only an Egyptian accountant and Egyptian accounting 'standards' could answer.
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Re: Train Crash Alexandria

Post by carrie »

Why would the high speed trains be restricted to tourists, the trains are full daily of Egyptians travelling to and from Cairo.
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Re: Train Crash Alexandria

Post by newcastle »

carrie wrote:Why would the high speed trains be restricted to tourists, the trains are full daily of Egyptians travelling to and from Cairo.
I doubt they fulfill Hafiz' criterion of being "well heeled" :lol:

But, I'm sure they've done their sums. :urm:

However, on past performance, the Egyptian arithmetical skills on major projects doesn't fill one with confidence.
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