Egypt's El Ferdan Railway Bridge - A Restored Transcontinental Railroad (Updated January 2026)

In the context of railway infrastructure, "Transcontinental" typically refers to the original Transcontinental Railroad, particularly in the United States. But very few pieces of infrastructure can truly be considered transcontinental. 

One that can be considered is Egypt's El Ferdan Railway Bridge (Google Maps), which is a dual swing bridge that spans the Suez Canal, connecting Africa with Asia. The bridge opened in 2001, and is (or was) the longest swing bridge in the world. Between 2001-2015, it served the Egyptian National Railway. Between 2015 and 2024, it was out of service, partly due to the Suez Canal's reconstruction and expansion, but was reactivated and expanded in late 2024 to once again reopen. This blog was originally posted in between that time frame, so context has been added to reflect the fact that it is now once again in service.

Railway bridges over the Suez Canal have had a tendency to not last very long, as it was the fifth bridge over the Suez Canal built in that location. 

The first bridge over the Suez was built in April 1918 for the Sinai Military Railway, but removed after World War I as it was a hindrance to shipping. 

A swing bridge built in 1942 was removed in 1947 after being damaged by a steamship. 

A dual swing bridge replaced it in 1954, but was closed in 1956 after the Suez Crisis. 

It was replaced in 1963, only to be destroyed in 1967 during the Six-Day War with Israel. 


Image credit: H Nawara, Wikipedia Commons

While this bridge has had the longest life of any railway bridge in the vicinity, it had not operated since 2015. The Suez Canal was expanded to include a second shipping line, causing the rail line that used the bridge to end at a dead end. (That didn't seem to work out very well, however.)

A new railway tunnel was planned to connect the railway east of the Suez to the rest of Egypt's railway network, which would have rendered the El Firdan Railway bridge obsolete. 

Al Firdan area, with the once out-of-service right of way.

Egypt then decided the El Ferdan Railway Bridge would be reactivated and expanded, as opposed to the initial plan of building a tunnel. A second bridge began construction in 2021 over the second lane of the Suez Canal.

In 2024, the original bridge was upgraded to carry an additional track. Together, the two bridges now provide a continuous double track railway crossing over both channels of the Suez Canal.

Aerial view of the now twin El Ferdan Railway Bridges. Image: Maffeis Engineering

With the completion of this project, rail service between mainland Egypt and the Sinai Peninsula has been restored. The El Ferdan Railway Bridge once again serves as one of the very few true transcontinental railway links in the world.


Thanks as always for reading!

Location: El Ferdan Railway Bridge, Al Temsah, El Qantara El Sharqiya, Ismailia Governorate, Egypt

Comments

  1. JonathanFebruary 12, 2021 at 2:48 PM

    I only just learned about this bridge today. Interestingly, if you look at Google Maps, you can see that they appear to be constructing a similar bridge across the new canal. I can't find any articles or photographs of this new bridge, though.
    https://goo.gl/maps/BHr2RqSj7XHsLnXd7

    It does seem a strange choice to build a swing bridge across a busy shipping channel as recently as 2001. I guess the new canal wasn't on the cards then, but it can't have been an important or busy railway line to be cut off much of the time as ships pass.

    ReplyDelete

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