Dozens of railway passengers coming from Aswan to Cairo protested in Assiut against their train's broken air conditioning.
Protesting passengers prevented the train from leaving Assiut station until the air conditioning was repaired, which made the train late by over an hour.
Passengers said that the air conditioner was out of order when the train left Aswan and the crew promised to repair it in Sohag.
In Sohag, they said, the crew told them it would be repaired in Assiut. In Assiut, they told them it would be repaired in Minya, which prompted the passengers to get out of the train and sit on the railway until the air conditioning was fixed.
The sit-in ended when a security official in Minya convinced them to return to their seats and promised to file a complaint with the police if the train's crew did not solve the problem.
Since the outbreak of the 25 January revolution people have used disrupting the train service as a way to force authorities make concessions.
Around 2000 residents of Ayat in Giza blocked the railway in June to protest against the installation of a mobile phone tower in the village. The sit-in ended when the tower was removed.
In April, a sit-in cut off train service in the Qena Governorate when a Copt and former police general was appointed governor. The sit-in ended when after 10 days the government removed the governor.
Translated from the Arabic Edition
