|
'Preserved' Steam in Egypt, 2009 |
|
|
Like all such databases, http://www.steamlocomotive.info
is only as good as the information that goes into it, both by way of
original data and its updating. For most of my favourite countries which
tend to be some way 'East of Suez', in fact it's not very helpful at all.
However, if you search for Egypt, it comes up with an 0-6-0T of US Army
origin preserved at some unknown location. Now Patrick Rudin can fill in
some of the gaps, with the aid of Hugh Hughes CRC book "Middle East
Railways"::
The "Egyptian Media Production City" (http://archives.obs-us.com/obs/german/books/mem/n01a08.htm) is located behind the Mövenpick-Hotel at 6th of October City, west of Gizeh in the middle of the desert. It contains a public amusement park and a big area with movie backdrops, to where toy train-style buses start from the amusement park for visitors. Just behind the visitor's canteen, where the buses stop after the tour, two very authentic railway-station backdrops are built with some 100 meters of tracks, two signals and following rolling stock: Steam loco no. 1160 - this is a war time 0-6-0T, one of 23 built by Vulcan Iron Works, Wilkes-Barre and Davenport. However, only 8 were known to have been taken into Egyptian State Railways stock and they were numbered 111 - 1158. Diesel shunter no. 4339 - a 400 HP diesel hydraulic from Ganz Mavag, Budapest 1961 onwards, it was a large class (4301 – 4398). a self-made historic 3 axle carriage, a 4 axle carriage, a body of a 4 axle carriage and some freight wagons. Half a block away, there is another backdrop called "Alexandria Town", where a short, obviously functional metre gauge tramway line with a single, 2 axle tram car (ex-Cairo, built in Charleroi) exists. There was a report in a German tramway magazine (Blickpunkt Strassenbahn 3/2005), in which this tramcar was presented and "some railway stuff" was mentioned without further details.
|
|
