Egyptian National Railways (ENR) has awarded Thales Espana Group, a division of France’s Thales,  a $150m contract for the modernisation of the signalling and telecoms systems of the 180km railway line that connects Assiut and Nagh Hammadi.

The line is a section within the railway route that links Alexandria, Cairo and Aswan.

The contract, which is to be executed over a three-year period, will be funded by the World Bank.

Thales said its signalling and communications solution for the Assiut to Nagh Hammadi route would be designed to work with ENR’s existing automatic train protection system and with the European Train Control Standard (ETCS) in the future.

Once completed, the upgrade will increase line speeds from 120 to 160 kilometres per hour (kph),

Thales won a similar contract for the Alexandria to Cairo route in 2013.

In 2015, ENR awarded Germany’s Alstom with a $100m contract to supply signalling equipment for the Beni Suef to Assiut line in Egypt.