The Rail Museum, Cairo, Egypt

Trains are a major means of transportation, and why not learn a little about them while waiting to board one at the Cairo train station. Many of us use trains every now and then to go from one place to another. Some people use the metro everyday to go to work in Egypt, and that is itself a modern train system. Haven’t you ever wondered, while traveling by a train, who invented this complicated machine, where did the idea of the train come from, and what did the first train look like? You can find the answers to all these questions and more in the railway museum in Cairo.



Located at the far right hand side of Misr Railway station in Ramsis Square, lies the Railway Museum. There is a vast difference between the atmosphere surrounding the museum and the world inside it. Noises of cars, trains, and people shouting are clearly heard outside. This is because Ramsis is considered one of the most crowded areas in Cairo. However, inside the museum everything seems calm and quite as if we are still living in the good old days. Even the employees working there seem as if they belong to the past century.

The Railway Museum was founded in 1933. It was finished on the 26th of October, 1932 and first opened on the 15th of January, 1933. It was originally built to celebrate the international railway conference which was held in that same year in Cairo. This allowed the conference members to experience the first railway museum in the Middle East.

The museum contains more than seven hundred pieces of models in addition to a collection of statistical documents and maps that demonstrate the development of transportation through the last decades. Therefore, the Railway Museum is considered the most important institute to collect information about transportation in the Middle East.

The History of Railway

James Watt's invention of the steam engine in the seventeenth century was the major motive for scientists to think of inventing a machine to enhance transportation means. William Murdoch was the first to invent a pioneer train wagon in England in 1784. After this attempt, many scientists tried to invent useful trains. One of them was Richard Nerfietik, who tried in 1814 to build the first railway route in history in the south of Wales, but the rails were not strong enough to hold his wagon "Catch Me If You Can” and they broke down. In 1825, George Stephenson was able to use his wagon “locomotion” to transport passengers from Seketon to Lingenton in England. The attempt was so successful that it encouraged the owners of the train to build another route from Liverpool to Manchester. This was truly the first railway ever invented. After its success in England, other countries all over the world started building trains and routes. The United States built its first railway in 1830 and other European countries started building their routes in 1832.

Railways in Egypt

The first railway built in Africa was in Egypt in 1853. The idea of building a railway goes back to 1833 when Mohamed Ali consulted his Scottish chief Engineer, T. Gallway, about building a route between Suez and Ain Shames to become the link between Europe and India. Mohamed Ali started initiating the project as he bought the rails in order to start building the route and the stations. However, France was able to prevent this from happening because the French government wanted to substitute this project with building a canal between the Red and the Mediterranean Seas. Mohamed Ali found himself shattered between the two ideas, so he refused to carry out any of them.

When Mohamed Ali died in 1849, England wrote to his successor, Abass Helmy I, asking him to build a railway in Egypt. He agreed and he signed a contract with Robert Stephenson, on the 12th of June, 1851. The contract asserted that the work should start in September of the same year and that Stephenson should be responsible for all the matters of the project.

The first railway route in Egypt was built in 1854, between Alexandria and Kafer Eassa, and it reached Cairo in 1856. In 1858, the route between Cairo and Suez was built, but it was taken off in the year 1878 after digging the Suez Canal. A new route was built in 1867 to connect Cairo with southern Egypt and Imbaba Bridge was built in 1891 to enable the trains to pass over the Nile near Cairo. And from this point on, the railway has become one of the most important means of transportation in Egypt. You can use the railway to go as far as Matrouh in the west and as far as Aswan in the north. Passengers can depend on the railway service to travel all over Egypt.

The museum mainly consists of five sections

Transportation before steam engines section: This section demonstrates the evolution of transportation from the period of the pharaohs until the invention of steam engines. It has interesting models of the ancient boats that the pharaohs used. This is besides other models and pictures of wooden horse wagons that the pharaohs used in transportation and in the army as well. Ancient gadgets that were vital for the pharaohs are also displayed to show how civilized these people were.

The trains section: The second section is the train section, which is considered the most important in the museum. It shows the development of trains from the first ever built wagon till the modern trains that we use in the present time.

The stations sections: Includes many models of train stations all over Egypt.

The bridges section: It contains models of all railway bridges all over Egypt. Pictures on the walls demonstrate the notion of the bridge and how men thought of it. The story says that there was a monkey who twisted his leg and wasn’t able to pass the river to go and eat from a tree. Each monkey held the legs of the other monkey in his hands and they all together constructed a bridge. The wounded monkey was able to pass the river moving on the bodies of his friends. When men saw this happening, they started to think of building bridges in order to help them pass rivers and seas.

The airplane section: This section gives a brief history of the development of airplanes from Wright till the present day. The section contains information about the airplane motors as well.


Gallery :::


Moving Statue in Ancient Egypt
A model that shows how ancient Egyptians carried a statue that weighs 60 tons from a city to another.


A Model of an Ancient Boat


Murdoch cart (1781) - This cart has played a fundamental role in the history of railways because, in fact, it is the very first cart that has been used in England. It was designed by Murdoch, James Watt's assistant, in 1781. However, it was never practically tested until 1784 in Redruth. Of course it wasn’t a real train that can carry passengers or commodities, but it worked good enough to prove that steam can be used as a fuel in transportation.


The Benidarwin Wagon - Richard Trevithick invented this wagon in 1804 in the iron workshops in Benidarwin. The owner of the workshops urged Trevithick to invent a wagon with steam engine to pull carts full of iron from the workshops to the port nine miles away. When it was examined on the 13th of February, 1804, it was able to pull twenty tons with a speed that reached five miles per hour. Unfortunately, the rails were weak, as they were made from cast iron and the whole project collapsed.


Rocket Cart 1829


Locomotion Cart
It was built by George Stephenson in 1852 and worked till the year 1846


Egypt's First Train - This was the first train that ever worked in Egypt. It was built by Stephenson under the request of Abass Helmy I, the Egyptian governor. It started working in the year 1852 with the first railway route between Alexandria and Kafer Eassa.


The Khedive Train, Exterior - This train was only built for the use of Khedive, Saiid Pasha. He only used it to go back and forth between his two palaces in Rass El Teen and Al Montazah. It was built by Robert Stephenson in 1862


The Khedive Train, Front - This train was only built for the use of Khedive, Saiid Pasha. He only used it to go back and forth between his two palaces in Rass El Teen and Al Montazah. It was built by Robert Stephenson in 1862


The Khedive Train, Controls - This train was only built for the use of Khedive, Saiid Pasha. He only used it to go back and forth between his two palaces in Rass El Teen and Al Montazah. It was built by Robert Stephenson in 1862


20th Century European Steam Train


Commodities Wagon - A model of an old commodities wagon used in Egypt in the beginning of the 20th century


Egyptian Steam Engine - A steam train used in Egypt in the 20th century


Modern Egyptian Second Class Coach - A modern second class wagon produced by Yugoslavia in the year 1963


Henchel Train - A model for a German train that works using electricity


Model of a Pullman Dinning Car circ. 1982


Tanta Station - A model of Tanta Station built between the year 1930 and the 1933. It was designed using Islamic decorations


Sidi Gaber Station - A model of this Station in Egypt at the beginning of the 20th Century


Imbaba Bridge - A model of the Imbaba Bridge built in 1924 and still in use today. It is the only place that allows trains to cross the Nile in Cairo and reach Northern Egypt.


The Suez Canal Bridge - The Suez Canal Bridge which was built in 1862 by Robert Stephenson.


United Arab Airlines - A model of a plain used by the United Arab Airlines in the past. It had seats for only two passengers other than the pilot


Comet Jet Plane Model - It includes 12 A class seats and 58 economy class seats. The speed of this plane was 805 kms per hour configured with four Rolls Royce jet engines


Havilland 102 Engine - Engine used in the (Havilland 102) plane which went from England to Egypt in 1932