A historic project in Cairo

Line 3 of the Cairo metro is part of a major mobility project for the city. Over the past 40 years, Bouygues Travaux Publics teams have participated in the development of lines 1 and 2, and are now at work on this third line, which will link the left bank of the River Nile to Cairo airport, crossing the capital from east to west. 

After the handover a year ago of phase 3A, comprising 4 kilometres of tunnel and four new stations, it's now time for phase 3B to be completed!

The northern section completed 

The consortium is now ready to open phase 3B, corresponding to the north-west section of line 3 phase 3, to train traffic. In all, 6 kilometres of new line will complete the network, including a 3-kilometre viaduct, 500 metres of tunnel and six new stations (four elevated stations, one underground station and one above-ground station). For this work, our teams had to contend with a dense urban environment: buildings located just a few metres away, a railway line adjacent to part of the section and a motorway crossing. To build the Ring Road station, they even had to temporarily close a very busy road to carry out the lifting operations.

To excavate the underground section, teams used a second TBM in parallel with the one used for phases 3A and 3C! Meanwhile, the viaduct was built using prefabricated segments and a launching beam - a first for the country! 

A special structure to connect two sections 

The route of this third phase of line 3 is atypical, taking the form of a fork, divided into three sections (3A, 3B and 3C). Section 3A, the base of the fork, has a structure specially designed for this particular shape, called a "diverting structure". This is a huge cavern, a 500-metre-long underground structure, which is used to switch trains to the other two sections of the line, one to the north (3B) and the other to the south (3C). 

Well done to all the teams involved for this new milestone.