Always Worth Saying’s Railway Review

Always Worth Saying, Going Postal
Image generated using GROK AI

One tires of the streetcars of Paramaribo, the mineral railways of the Amazon, and even of rural Albania in the 1980s. Railway Review’s roving reportage shall change continents and seek excitement (but not too much) at the twin swing bridges of El Ferdan.

The longest such structures in the world, these feature movable spans of over 700 yards, with each leaf spanning over 300 yards. The western bridge opened on 14 November 2001. A steel cantilever truss with a central pivot, the leafs rotates 90 degrees in about 15 minutes, opening a 350-yard channel to allow ship passage.

Always Worth Saying, Going Postal
The swing bridges at El Ferdan
© Google Maps 2025, Google licence

To the left is a pattern of rails connecting the original railway line to the crossings. The original line being the Suez to Port Said via Ismailia, a route constructed by the Suez Canal Company in 1892. It began as a narrow‑gauge line intended for passenger travel along the canal’s bank but changed ownership to the Egyptian National Railways in 1902 and converted to standard gauge in 1904.

Over time, El Ferdan hosted several bridges. The first was a military rail crossing built in 1918 and later removed. In 1942, a temporary WWII-era swing bridge was installed but dismantled in 1947 after damage following a steamship colision.

A double swing bridge was completed in 1954 but destroyed during the 1956 Suez Crisis. Rebuilt in 1963, it lasted until the 1967 Six-Day War. The current, fifth, on this site dates from in 2001. In 2015, the expansion of the canal added a new shipping lane from south of El Qantara to Great Bitter Lake, rendering the western rail crossing a dead end.

To restore connectivity, the new eastern swing bridge was constructed over the new canal arm, and became operational early last year. The western bridge is now upgraded and reinforced to support double-track lines. Both bridges are operational, allowing trains to cross each passageway and thus re-establish a continuous rail link between the two banks of the canal.

On the eastern side, and about a mile and a quarter on, the line curves north and follows the alignment of the waterway before diverging east after 15 miles. This is El Qantara, where we reach a sizeable railway station once called by its Anglicised name of Kantana East. It sits four and a half miles out of the present urban area and the canal.

Always Worth Saying, Going Postal
East Kantara station with disused wartime sidings
© Google Maps 2025, Google licence

At this point, we must say goodbye to the Egyptian National Railways and doff our hats to the chaps at the War Office in London 109 years ago. When all was virgin desert, a calculation was made regarding the amount of water an army and its horses might require while traversing such an inhospitable landscape on behalf of King, country and empire.

In consequence, five thousand tons of pipeline of the appropriate bore arrived in Kantara along with a detachment of Royal Engineers.

Can you tell where we’re going yet? Read on.

The sappers rolled up their sleeves and struck out into the desert, building the water pipeline and an associated railway line. The army followed, while preparing to engage the enemy.

As well as the remaining station at East Kantara, another Kantara halt sat beside, but perpendicular to, the waterway. Detailed maps of the area dating from the 1930s have survived, but I can’t find a match for the present canalside — much changed over the last century and a bit. Suffice it to say, a spur left Kantara East and curved south, suggesting the Kantara canalside station was likely somewhere between the present township and the new bridge pictured below. For clarity, Kantara East is arrowed.

Always Worth Saying, Going Postal
East Kantara (arrowed), with Kantara canal side somewhere between the township and the bridge.
© Google Maps 2025, Google licence

Back in the second decade of the 20th century, the canal crossing from the Suez–Port Said railway at Kantara was done by ferryboats. Passengers disembarked on one side, crossed the canal and boarded a train standing on the other side. Freight cars crossed by a ferryboat that carried three cars per trip. It took several hours to transfer the wagons that made up a typical freight train.

When up and running (and when in peacetime) one passenger train per day served Kantara East. Including sleeper cars and a restaurant car, it arrived there at 5:30 pm and departed for an overnight return at 11:35 pm.

Can you tell where we’re going yet?

Engaged throughout 1916 and 1917, the Sappers were assisting the Egyptian Expeditionary Force (EEF), a British and British Empire unit formed in March 1916. Some of the engineers’ handiwork remains, but some is covered by desert sands and, as per the various crossings at El Ferdan, some has been lost to the gods of war, given the troubled region’s never-ending conflicts.

At the time, engineers laid out the track in front of the construction crews. A slight grade held the railbed. Planted with desert shrubs, their roots would give some purchase to the permanent way as it crossed the shifting sands. The work of keeping the tracks clear fell to sand boys who scooped the tracks clean with buckets. Construction was done almost entirely by hand with the assistance of thousands of Egyptian conscripts.

In the modern day, the route can be followed by aerial photography across a nondescript landscape punctuated by remote stations such as Gelbana (8 miles from kantata east) and Baloza.

Always Worth Saying, Going Postal
Gelbana station, on the diagonal to the right
© Google Maps 2025, Google licence
Always Worth Saying, Going Postal
Baloza station, centre.
© Google Maps 2025, Google licence

A couple of miles on from Baloza, the aerial photography changes from images taken in July 2023 to those of May 2024. As it does, the line becomes an ominous black smudge, which becomes a line overwhelmed by sand a couple of miles later as a spur heads to the coast. It becomes a black line again as we enter Romani.

Always Worth Saying, Going Postal
Romani
© Google Maps 2025, Google licence
Always Worth Saying, Going Postal
Bir al-Abed
© Google Maps 2025, Google licence

Our friends at Open Railway Map give up at Bir al-Abed (above). Here, they announce the rest of the route as abandoned. Although it’s covered in sand, the practised eye can still follow a disturbance in the dunes as far as Qaryat el-Sadat.

Can you tell where we’re heading yet?

At El Arish (97 miles from Kantara East), Open Railway Map has a dotted line passing inland north of the airfield, whereas the old photos suggest a line closer to the coast. Pictures survive of El Arish station dating from the Six-Day War of 1967.

The engines of the Egyptian State Railways are covered in bullet holes. Captions include words such as “abandoned” and “dismantled.”

Always Worth Saying, Going Postal
Al Arish with water visible between the palm trees.
Railway Station El Arish, Egypt,
דניאל ונטורה
Public domain

A photograph claiming to be from 1977 shows some tracks remaining. It also appears to show seaside between the palm trees, rather than an inland airfield. No matter the location, in the modern day all is covered in concrete, making further identification impossible.


An article in the Egypt Independent throws light on the fate of this place. A resident, Mr Ishaq Gamil al-Sabbagh, remembers a huge station with platforms about a third of a mile long and trackwork about 50 yards in width.

“The train used to come from Cairo passing by Be’r al-Abd and Arish… It used to be loaded with everything including equipment, supplies, citizens and others.”

Of the Six-Day War (the Naksa to the natives), Mr al-Sabbagh recalls:

“In 1967, I used to live near to the station. I witnessed Naksa Day, when the Israeli aviation struck all the trains and Egyptian military sites here. Israeli missiles did not leave one train in good condition in the stop. Hundreds of soldiers were killed here.

I quickly left the place with my sons and lived in a house in Arish city for three days. We returned back then and found the bodies of the soldiers everywhere. We brought a cart to carry the soldiers. We buried them in many places like Sahel al-Bahr and tombs of Arish. It was a painful scene in the stop which saw hard historic incidents.”

Following Naksa Day, Mr al-Sabbagh informs us the train came to Arish no more. The railway was blocked, with Israelis stealing the rail and cutting it into separate parts. Following the Yom Kippur War of 1973, residents took control of a big part of the station land and built houses upon it, obliterating the site.

After Al Arish, we are only about 20 miles from our destination, with, in recent decades, significant parts of the old railway alignment being overlaid by roads. Satellite imagery indicates that stretches of the former railway route have been converted into roadways, earth tracks, or urban development, thus erasing the railway.

However, no single continuous highway runs along the entire former line. Instead, the corridor has been piecemeal absorbed into recent infrastructure, particularly near urban centres. You can see sections of the road route highlighted below, much of which is obvious former railway alignments.

Always Worth Saying, Going Postal
likely railway alignment (red) east of El Arish.
© Google Maps 2025, Google licence

After my red line, the road heads due east, but old maps indicate the railway continued on its previous diagonal course and reached the approaching border closer to the sea than the modern-day road.

Can you tell where we are yet?

Regular readers will be aware that, in accompanying pieces, this humble reviewer of obscure rails has been unenthusiastic about returning to Amazonian manganese mines, Albanian branch lines or pulley rides across the Suriname River. Unsurprisingly, he won’t be going to the Gaza Strip either.

For we have been following the route of the Sinai Military Railway, which helped to ‘free, free, Palestine!’ from the Ottoman Turks at the end of the Great War. It entered the territory at Rafah, but not the famous Rafah Crossing, much in the news these days. That lies to the south at a place called Shokat As Sufi.

From the actual border town of Rafah, the line is obliterated as far as Khan Yunis. From here it followed the Salah Al-Deen highway, the main road artery that runs the length of the Strip.

Along the central reservation, at numerous points, we see rows of trees and walls matching photographs available from news agencies and captioned as Khan Yunis. Smiling children play about them. Might there be hope?

Always Worth Saying, Going Postal
Central reservation that once carried the Kantara-Haifa railway through Khan Yunis.
© Google Maps 2025, Google licence

This is the closest we’re likely to get to the better times when sleeper carriages and a restaurant car left the Suez Canal at 11:35 pm to arrive 256 miles later at Haifa at an impressive 9 o’clock the next morning – after calling at Gaza Station at 4:43 am en route.

On a happier note, those 2024 black smudge aerial pictures were of trackbed being re-laid as far as Bir al-Abd. As part of a Sinai development plan, stations such as Kantara East, Gelbana and Baloza have been refurbished and began to enjoy a new El Ferdan to Bir al-Abd passenger service from last October.

The first train for half a century, correspondent Kamal Tabikha of The National newspaper, reported one of the reasons for reopening is to discourage other countries, particularly Israel, from seeking to relocate Palestinians to the area. Oh well, then again, there might not be hope…
 

© Always Worth Saying 2025