On the afternoon of December 8 (local time), President Xi Jinping met with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. During the meeting, President Xi stressed that China is willing to deepen the "Belt & Road" cooperation with Egypt and promote the completion of the 10th of Ramadan Railway with high quality as scheduled.

The 10th of Ramadan Railway is an important cooperation project under the China-Egypt "Belt & Road" Initiative. With a total length of 70km in the first and second phases and 12 stations along the way, the line connects Cairo and the new capital, and it is an important supporting transportation project of the Eastern Economic Corridor. After the line’s revenue service, it will benefit 5 million residents along the way. The project is undertaken by the CREC-AVIC INTL Consortium, and CASCO, as a signaling system integrator, provided the CBTC signaling system with services covering the whole life cycle of "product design-equipment procurement-site construction-subsequent maintenance".

Since the start of the project, CASCO has made every effort to ensure high-quality construction of the project. After more than a thousand days and nights of unremitting struggle, the line was successfully commissioned for trial operation in July 2022. Later in November, trial operation of the whole line started and hand-over is now underway. This project has left the imprint of Chinese craftsman spirit on the "Belt and Road".

CASCO customized Egypt's first CBTC system through countless refinements

The 10th of Ramadan Railway is the first CBTC line in Egypt. In order to help the Egyptian client quickly establish a systematic understanding of CBTC, CASCO organized a number of CBTC technical sharing sessions and trainings during 2019-2020, invited the client and the supervisor to China for a visit, and arranged internships for a number of Egyptian trainees on the project to cultivate localized talents for the local community.

CBTC's technical sharing sessions and trainings

With the strong support of the Consortium, CASCO fully understood the client's needs and the supervisor’s requirements, communicated closely with all parties, sufficiently integrated the Chinese and Egyptian technical concepts, and successfully created a precise and perfect technical solution. In November 2021, 7 categories of design documents, totaling more than 200 in number, passed the review one by one, and CASCO’s customized design proposal for CBTC signaling system of the the 10th of Ramadan Railway was finalized at last.

Egypt's rail transit achieved multiple breakthroughs from nothing

With CASCO's technical support, the 10th of Ramadan Railway achieved multiple technical upgrades in several dimensions and accomplished a series of important breakthroughs out of nothing: the first CBTC line in Egypt, the first line with information security functions, and the first line to realize dynamic equipment maintenance and monitoring... These "firsts" pressed the “speed up” button of digitization and informatization for the development of Egypt's rail transit and provided a high-quality demonstration standard for the subsequent promotion of the CBTC system.

CASCO’s staff working with the Egyptian client and supervisor at site

In addition to adding some advanced sub-system modules into the system design as much as possible to introduce more digital and information functions, CASCO also carried out specific configuration and software development for the CBTC system according to the local needs of Egypt to better adapt to the usage habits of local users.

"Made-in-China" won recognition and broke doubts

The 10th of Ramadan Railway adopted not only the CBTC signaling system "intelligently" made in China, but also a large number of Chinese signaling equipment. CASCO took the lead in the procurement of signaling equipment and strictly followed the European standards to ensure that the client's requirements could be met in terms of equipment selection, system integration and engineering implementation.

In order to ensure overall quality control, CASCO formulated a strict screening mechanism for equipment suppliers, and determined the preferred supplier list after several rounds of discussion. Especially, the waterproof, dustproof and anti-electromagnetic interference performance of the equipment was strictly evaluated, taking into full consideration the local climate and natural environment.

In November 2020, CASCO invited the Egyptian client and supervisor to China to inspect and accept the equipment. When they came to Shanghai and saw the development achievements of China's rail transit with their own eyes, they were very impressed, and their minor doubts about Chinese manufacturing disappeared at once. The equipment quickly passed the inspection and was shipped to Egypt successively.

Equipment inspection at factory and loading of the first batch of signaling equipment at port and arrival in Egypt

High-quality delivery was realized as promised after overcoming difficulties

In April 2021, as the project entered the equipment installation stage, the project team was presented with a new challenge. Since more than 90% of the entire route is located on the ground and most area along the route was in the desert and Gobi, almost all of the preliminary equipment installation and survey works had to be carried out outdoors. During the period, the signaling equipment installers left early and returned late every day. In the hot weather of more than 40°C, they ran back and forth along the line again and again under the scorching sun, facing the wind and sand. The longest walk reached 16 km in one day. Some colleagues, with their feet worn out, still persisted in the front line until the task was successfully completed.

Installation and track survey

During the construction period, a tight schedule and heavy tasks were presented to the signaling system commissioning team. From the first signaling system commissioning in February 2022 to obtaining the operation safety certificate in June 2022, more than a dozen members in the commissioning team raced against time every day to catch up with the milestones of the construction schedule and finally achieved the key goal of opening for trial operation in July.

On-site clarification meeting before commissioning

After the opening of the line, CASCO will continue to provide maintenance service for a period of 12 years, implement our brand concept of "fully protected and fully assured" with practical actions, and help advance the Sino-Egyptian "Belt & Road" cooperation further.

As the history of the ancient city extends, the expansion of China's infrastructure construction is still going on its voyage, and CASCO's overseas "fleet" will continue to brave the wind and the waves.