Al-Masry Al-Youm recently toured the National Railway Authority’s Wardan Training Institute, once considered a leading establishment for railway training and instruction, to find it completely dilapidated after years of neglect.
The institute, built on a total area of 150 acres, was first established in 1978. It quickly became a center of learning for train drivers, engineers and railway workers.
The institute’s 28 training centers provided training courses, both on emergency management and passenger service, some of which lasted as long as six months. Some 200 students would graduate from the institute’s vocational college every year before it was closed down in 2004.
Nowadays, however, trainees at the institute say courses are of negligible quality and seldom last more than two weeks — a state of affairs, they say, that is reflected by the many rail disasters seen in Egypt in recent years.
Institute officials, however, are quick to point out that a total of LE168 million has been allocated for the institute’s total renovation under the supervision of the state-run Arab Academy for Science and Technology.
Translated from the Arabic Edition.
