Friends of the Rail Forum

At least 32 people were killed and more than a hundred injured when two trains collided in southern Egypt. Authorities blamed a passenger activating the emergency brakes...

Egyptian railway authorities said the accident happened when someone activated the emergency brakes of a passenger train headed to the Mediterranean city of Alexandria. The train stopped abruptly and was struck from behind by another train, a statement said, causing two carriages from the first train to flip over...

Emergency brakes were activated on the train in front by "unknown individuals", causing the train behind to crash into it, the country's railway authority said...

A surveillance camera shot by AFP showed a violent collision in which one car was thrown into the air in a huge cloud of dust. The disaster occurred in the village of al-Sawamaa Gharb, 460 km south of Cairo. The overturned wagons and debris were completely cleared from the tracks on Saturday and rail traffic resumed, an AFP journalist noted...

The authorities initially reported 32 dead and 165 injured before lowering the death toll on Saturday to 19 dead and 185 injured. According to local media, both train drivers died...

According to a statement from the Egyptian Railway Authority, the Luxor-Alexandria train and the Aswan-Cairo train were travelling on the same track in the same direction. They collided after unidentified individuals "applied the emergency brake in several cars" in one of the two trains... "Our train suddenly stopped and 15 minutes later the second one arrived and hit us. I saw it coming, screamed and then found myself on the ground in great pain"...

Egyptian prosecutors claim they found that gross negligence by railway employees was behind a deadly train crash that caused public outcry across the country. Drugs were allegedly also involved...

At least 18 people died – revised down from an intial tally of about 32 - and 200 others, including children, were injured...