On a third-class train ride, Mustafa El-Menshawy observes the plight of the dispossessed The 3pm southbound train sounded its hooter as it approached Giza Railway Station -- a warning for the predominantly Upper Egyptian passengers to get ready to board. Instant pandemonium in these third-class compartments: dishevelled galabiya -clad figures juggled plastic bags with children and cheap suitcases as they clambered onto the platform, heaving and shoving desperately. Survival rule number one: Come hell or high water, you must get on the train; don't even think about securing a seat yet. We are bound for Assiut, 355 kilometres away, and the seven hours ahead already feel like a test of endurance. Amazingly, everyone manages to get on, although many of us are obliged to make do with the floor. Littered with fruit peel, cigarette butts, all manner of filth, this is after all only marginally less pleasant than the luggage racks, where others have ensconced themselves, evidently with the intention of sleeping. It boggles the mind to think that this is one of 1,300 third-class carriages traversing the nation daily. The Railway Authority's promise of "tougher safety measures", delivered in the wake of a disaster in which 400 passengers were burned alive in an identical carriage three years ago this month, does not seem to have been fulfilled. On closer inspection you do eventually realise that the interiors are now fitted with fire extinguishers and emergency hand brakes, but this hardly improves your mood. It may well be that the seats are fire-resistant -- there are certainly more toilets than there used to be, though let us please not talk of hygiene, and the train master has a walkie-talkie with which to communicate with the driver lest the (urgent) need should arise -- but this does not make the carriage any less dismal, dirty or overcrowded. It feels hardly human. Ten minutes into our trip a foul smell begins to permeate the carriage; it emanates from the aforementioned toilets. "Disgusting", one disgruntled passenger mouths. "Excrement all over the floor and not a drop of running water." Ten more minutes and cigarette smoke begins to waft through our already cramped breathing space -- in defiance of the non-smoking rule which, according to new regulations, should incur an instant LE10 fine. Another passenger explains to me that the rule is never implemented because the railway police, who occupy four seats in the middle of the carriage, are always the first to break it. Turn round and you spy one policeman nonchalantly lighting up as he passes a group of children sitting on the threshold of the carriage door, their feet dangling out of the train. He does not even notice them, so familiar is the sight. Safety indeed. "Can you imagine," Walid Abdel-Azim, a 21-year-old Cairo University student complained. "Such a huge number of passengers and not a single buffet car or a usable bathroom on the whole train." His outrage notwithstanding, Abdel-Azim is a regular passenger on the southbound train; It is the only affordable means of conveyance to and from his hometown of Beni Sweif. Many passengers expressed the same frustration: the third-class carriage is the only available option for trips to and from Cairo; and the service remains sub-human even as ticket prices continue to soar. A third-class ticket to Assiut costs LE9 today, as opposed to LE7 three years ago. "What of the government's promise to pump LE351 million into upgrading the third-class train service?" Kamel Kamal, a 35- year-old scholar also bound for Beni Sweif, sounds peculiarly precise. He has clearly paid meticulous attention to the relevant government announcements, hope has not betrayed him entirely; but he undergoes the same conditions. For their part railway officials blame it all on negligent passengers who do not cooperate with efforts to improve the service. Yet it remains hard to see what more a human being can do than sit on the floor of a train carriage for seven hours; the bad-behaviour theory does not hold water once you are actually on board. Every person I spoke to during this train ride had heard of the 20 February 2002 disaster; and as we raced down the tracks all agreed that, yes, it may well happen again. Ayman Makram, a 24-year-old lawyer from Minya, testified to having seen fellow passengers carry and use butane cylinders of the kind said to have caused the fire three years ago. "It's easy to get one on board," he said, "considering how lax the screening is at railway stations." People were likewise familiar with the authority's track record. Only last month, in Minya, five overcrowded carriages overturned after a third-class Cairo-bound train derailed, some wheels having been dislodged: 37 people were injured. Within 48 hours of the accident, the locomotive of another third-class train on its way to Cairo, this time from Aswan, derailed in Beni Sweif, with similarly distressing results. In December a train crashed in Ismailia: five people were injured. Another caught fire in Giza. Many passengers insisted that, while this particular carriage did have fire alarms (nobody knows if they actually work, they added), most of the trains they board have neither fire alarms nor emergency exits. Not that fire alarms made this ride any safer. Speaking on condition of anonymity, the assistant driver himself told Al-Ahram Weekly that the locomotive propelling the train was past its expiry date. "It was made in Germany in 1979," he said, "and it's in a dreadful state of dilapidation. And the only safety measure is an old fire extinguisher in the back." The windscreen is in such a state, he added, that vision can be extremely poor; both he and the driver are always uncomfortably seated. Many also complained that, while they are by and large more punctual than they used to be prior to the 2002 tragedy, trains are still seldom on schedule. Equipment maintenance is similarly lacking: less than two years after they were last renovated, the window panes and doors of the train are broken down or not working efficiently. Zein Mohamed, a construction worker (thus a typical third-class train passenger) and a survivor of the 2002 tragedy, recalled how he jumped out of the window as the train sped along. "I will never forget the day," he said. The service is better in that thugs and vendors are no longer allowed on board, he explained. Does he not fear another train accident, though? "The microbus costs LE25," he points out. "And there are no other options." In the end, he adds quizzically, "it is all in God's hand".
