Service will resume on a number of different rail routes from Cairo to Upper Egypt on Saturday. Nagwa Albeir, the media advisor at Egypt's railway authority, told Ahram Online that 14 different services between Cairo and Upper Egypt will restart on Saturday. Train services into and out of Cairo were halted in August after widespread unrest following the dispersal of Islamist protest camps in Cairo by the security forces. While trains were prevented from leaving or arriving at the capital, secondary inter-city lines were operating normally. The decision came on Wednesday following a meeting between the railway authority and security officials. In October, 28 services between the capital and the Mediterranean city of Alexandria were resumed. Currently, 56 out of a total 188 services between Cairo and nationwide destinations have been resumed. The authority lost LE4 million daily since the stoppage started. "Since the mid-August political turmoil, the authority has sustained [additional] LE12 million in losses due to damage at offices and lines, and LE21 million from theft of spare parts and tracks," Albeir told Ahram Online in October. Under normal conditions, Egypt's railway service transports around 500 million passengers annually, a rate of 1.4 million per day, according to the Railway Authority's website. Source: Ahram Online
