Trial runs on the Sokhna-Marsa Matrouh high-speed rail line mark the first step in moving Egypt’s industrial logistics off the road and onto the tracks, with the 660-km Green Line designed to move 8.5k tons of freight and 1 mn passengers daily. Trial operations for the first phase of the project launched in November.

Could this open up a new Red Sea-Mediterranean link? Instead of massive container ships navigating the Suez Canal to unload at one of many small Mediterranean ports, they can offload at the expanded Sokhna Port on the Red Sea. Goods would then be sorted and railed across the desert in hours to Mediterranean terminals like Dekheila or Alexandria, where smaller feeder ships can deliver goods to final destinations in Southern Europe or North Africa in a quicker and more cost-effective way.

The line could also boost Egyptian export ambitions, as it runs adjacent to significant industrial and manufacturing hubs like the Suez Canal Economic Zone, Helwan, Fifteenth of May, Sixth of October, and the outskirts of Alexandria. The line could significantly reduce transit times for freight and structurally shift how products reach global markets.

The move aligns with the state’s goal of increasing rail’s share of land-based freight from less than 1% to 15% — set to run in tandem with regional express and freight trains. “What Egypt is aiming to do is very innovative because we are aiming to run a freight train, a regional train, and an intercity train on the same network, at the same time,” Transport for Cairo Director Mohamed Hegazy tells EnterpriseAM.

A replacement for trucking? “It really depends on a lot of parameters,” Hegazy explained. “Firstly, what is the price? After the price, what is the reliability? And remember that time is money, so a lack of reliability — which is the case of the current network — would increase the actual cost for truckers. The current Egyptian National Railway is unable to compete with trucking’s hold over the national logistics market.”

It’s hard to assess the project’s potential impact when there’s still lots we don’t know about it. We know the location — but the timeline, stations, and operations plan have yet to be made public. “There are a lot of theoretical possibilities [offered by this project] but the issue is in the quantification of these hypothetical impacts,” Hegazy said. “We would love to learn more about the details of the line… there is a great benefit to investing in the publication of information, engagement with the private sector, and filling the information gaps and requirements needed for investment in the project,” he added.

What’s next? The line is part of a 2k-km high-speed rail network linking Cairo, Aswan, the North Coast, and the Red Sea across 3 main lines. The Green Line will be followed by the Blue Line linking Cairo to Abu Simbel and the Red Line connecting Luxor to Safaga.

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