PUSHING TRANSPORT PHOTOS TO A NEW LIMIT IN EGYPT

Not too much chat here as I've not been asleep for two days now, I left the hotel at 10.30 pm UK time and arrived home at lunchtime today. A trying trip with lots of adventure. No huge haul of photo, a good sprinkling of video and a memorable train ride. The double deck driving trailers were out and about on the suburban system but the town services are on their last legs with congestion striking home with no trams on the majority of town lines for several hours fro lunch to teatime. It is the school children which cause all sorts of problems as they leaves school in hordes at different times, parents collecting them block roads in all directions. The Danish Duewags soldier on. I'm trying to get sorted out ready to start editing tomorrow when we also have flu jabs. In WWII the allies built railways into Libya from Egypt but most / all were torn up after the war.

The train ride to the end of Egyptian railways west line is provided by a seemingly little known station in Alexandria, the line as far as track is concerned is quite good condition but the stock is horrific. A single journey cost us each about 25p, lasting four hours and the return 5 hours. There was evidence of the new Siemens etc contract to upgrade and new stock should arrive when complete providing a high-speed electrified line connecting Ain Sokhna to Mersa Matruh and Alexandria.  Siemens will supply  Velaro high-speed trains, Desiro regional sets, and Vectron freight locomotives. Mersa Matruh was a filthy town drowning in rubbish. Photography of any sort is a risky business especially with the events on the Garza Strip leading to heightened tensions and seeing Israeli spies behind every bush. They had been whipped up to a frenzy on Sunday and we experienced thousands of children being shipped to the anti Israel demonstrations in the so called day of fury.

We arrived to start the day in heavy rain, it was soaking wet in the carriages, the few seats in the first (sic) class section were the first to fill but the ordinary carriages had more open windows and I managed to get shots along a whole section of line from the window without mishap. At Mersa Matruh there were a lot of tanks off loaded at the rail head, a good job I'd exchanged memory chips before we got picked up by the secret services, mind you they could have been Noddy in Toyland as most we playing whatever people do on computer toys. We did get away after showing the tram pictures. So each photo obtained against streams of people and traffic and kids jumping in front and adults waving sticks is all the more precious for its history. So first at the end of a long day the Loco courtesy Martin Rickett  my travelling companion.

A rare shot of two of the double deck trailers at Ramleh side by side, inbound and outbound

Of course we do have to relax and eat, we gave up on the Cecil where we stayed and went to the Metropole opposite which had better food by far and cheaper. The Cecil HQ for secret services in Middle East WWII and the Metropole of Ice Cold in Alex bar fame.