Ramses Railway Station (), also called Misr Station (), is the main railway station of

Cairo Cairo ( ; , ) is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Egypt and the Cairo Governorate, being home to more than 10 million people. It is also part of the List of urban agglomerations in Africa, largest urban agglomeration in Africa, L ...

Egypt Egypt ( , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country spanning the Northeast Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to northe ...

. The name is derived from the

Ancient Egypt Ancient Egypt () was a cradle of civilization concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in Northeast Africa. It emerged from prehistoric Egypt around 3150BC (according to conventional Egyptian chronology), when Upper and Lower E ...

ian pharaoh

Ramses II Ramesses II (sometimes written Ramses or Rameses) (; , , ; ), commonly known as Ramesses the Great, was an Pharaoh, Egyptian pharaoh. He was the third ruler of the Nineteenth Dynasty of Egypt, Nineteenth Dynasty. Along with Thutmose III of th ...

, whose

statue A statue is a free-standing sculpture in which the realistic, full-length figures of persons or animals are carved or Casting (metalworking), cast in a durable material such as wood, metal or stone. Typical statues are life-sized or close to ...

was erected by

Nasser Gamal Abdel Nasser Hussein (15 January 1918 – 28 September 1970) was an Egyptian military officer and revolutionary who served as the second president of Egypt from 1954 until his death in 1970. Nasser led the Egyptian revolution of 1952 a ...

on the square there in 1955.

History

The original railway station was built as the terminal of the first rail link from

Alexandria Alexandria ( ; ) is the List of cities and towns in Egypt#Largest cities, second largest city in Egypt and the List of coastal settlements of the Mediterranean Sea, largest city on the Mediterranean coast. It lies at the western edge of the Nile ...

to Cairo in 1856. The current building was erected in 1892 and upgraded in 1955. In January 2001, it underwent a major modernisation. In early 2011, following the Egyptian Uprising, Ramses station was fully upgraded and air conditioned with new marble flooring across the station and the addition of escalators. Some critics believe that the modernisations were too modern and destroyed much of the building's original style.

Huda Sha'arawi Huda Sha'arawi or Hoda Sha'rawi (, ; 23 June 1879 – 12 December 1947) was a pioneering Egyptians, Egyptian feminism, feminist leader, women's suffrage, suffragette, nationalism, nationalist, and founder of the Egyptian Feminist Union. Early ...

, the Egyptian feminist, famously removed her veil here in 1923. The classic film '' Cairo Station'' (1958) was made at Ramses Station. The film's original title, The Iron Gate (Arabic: باب الحديد Bāb al-Ḥadīd), is a name by which the station is popularly known.

Structure

Outside of the station used to be the statue of Ramses II that was relocated to the area of

Giza Giza (; sometimes spelled ''Gizah, Gizeh, Geeza, Jiza''; , , ' ) is the third-largest city in Egypt by area after Cairo and Alexandria; and fourth-largest city in Africa by population after Kinshasa, Lagos, and Cairo. It is the capital of ...

on 25 August 2006, in preparation for its eventual installation in the

Grand Egyptian Museum The Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM; ''al-Matḥaf al-Maṣriyy al-Kabīr''), also known as the Giza Museum, is an archaeological museum in Giza, Egypt, about from the Giza pyramid complex. The Museum hosts over 100,000 artifacts from ancient E ...

. It was eventually placed there in 2018. The famous sculpture of Mahmoud Mokhtar, Nahdat Misr (Egypt's Awakening), was originally installed outside the station in 1928, but was removed to its current location near Cairo University in the 1950s. Facilities in the station include a left luggage office, a post office, ATMs, a pharmacy and a tourist information office.

Train services

Ramses Station is served by the vast majority of Egyptian National Railways' intercity passenger services.

Connecting services

The railway station also has a connection to

Cairo Metro The Cairo Metro (, lit. "Cairo Tunnel Metro" or ) is a rapid transit system in Greater Cairo, Egypt. It was the first of the three full-fledged metro systems in Africa and the first in the Middle East to be constructed. It was opened in ...

Lines 1 and 2 via the nearby "Al-Shohadaa/Martyrs" Station; city buses, microbuses and Cairo

taxi A taxi, also known as a taxicab or simply a cab, is a type of vehicle for hire with a Driving, driver, used by a single passenger or small group of passengers, often for a non-shared ride. A taxicab conveys passengers between locations of thei ...

s are also available.

Incidents

On 27 February 2019 a train hit a buffer stop at the station. According to Egypt's Prosecutor General Nabil Sadek, one train driver had left his train to fight with another train driver; thereafter, an unmanned train struck a barrier. The resulting explosion and fire killed at least 25 people and wounded at least 47 people. Some victims' bodies were burned beyond recognition. Egypt's Transportation Minister Hisham Arafat resigned shortly after the incident.

Gallery

File:Cairo Railway station.jpg,

Station building A station building, also known as a head house, is the main building of a passenger railway station. It is typically used principally to provide services to passengers. A station building is a component of a station, which can include tracks, ...

File:Cairo Railways2.JPG, Platforms File:Cairo Train Station.jpg, Platforms File:The Main Door-Ramses Station.JPG, Main station's door

References

External links

Transport in Cairo Buildings and structures in Cairo Railway stations in Egypt opened in 1856 Railway stations in Egypt opened in 1892 {{Egypt-railstation-stub