Post date: Jan 31, 2011 5:17:27 PM
Travellers are stranded as the government closes train lines from Cairo's central station.
CAIRO, EGYPT (JANUARY 31, 2011) REUTERS - The Egyptian government announced on Monday (January 31) that it has officially closed the train lines. Dusty trains sat in the station sidings whilst stranded travellers waited. Meanwhile protests against the government continued in the capital.
Dozens who cannot afford a private cab to get them to their homes far rom the capital have been stranded at the train station, some of them for days."We have been sitting here in the street for two days unable to find transport. We agreed with someone to take us home and they were going to charge us 200 Egyptian Pounds and then they change their minds and say 'no we cannot drive you home since there is a curfew'," Ramadan Abdelhamid from Said told Reuters.
"There are no means of travel or anything, we have been sitting here since yesterday and there is no bus or train or anything to take us to Luxor," Hussein from Luxor said.
President Hosni Mubarak overhauled his government on Monday to try to defuse a popular uprising against his 30-year rule, but angry protesters rejected the changes and said he must surrender power.
On the seventh consecutive day of unrest in the Arab world's most populous nation, tens of thousands of protesters rallied in Cairo's Tahrir Square chanting "Get out ... We want you out" and singing Egypt's national anthem.