The first test flights of a train between Tunisia and Algeria began after a long interruption

A train between Tunisia and Algeria will return on a test flight on Friday after stopping operation for more than two decades, and after the failure of a first attempt to restart the train in 2017.

Today, Thursday, a train departs from the capital, Tunis, on a test trip to the Tunisian Ghar al-Dama station on the border with Algeria, and returns on Thursday evening to the capital, Tunis, and will depart on Friday on a test trip linking the entire route between the capital, Tunis, to the Annaba station in eastern Algeria, after it was… Technical teams from both countries have inspected the condition of the railway line on the border and the process of renovating the necessary parts of it has been completed.

A working session will be held in Tunisia next Saturday, bringing together the management of the Algerian Transport Company with the Tunisian Railway Company, to sign an agreement on the mechanisms for re-running a train between Tunisia and Algeria, and to finalize the latest arrangements related to the competent authorities such as the border police and customs.

The first train trips for travelers between the two countries are expected to begin on July 5, with the beginning of the summer season, on the occasion of Algeria’s Independence Day.

It is noteworthy that train trips between the two countries stopped in the early 1990s with the outbreak of the crisis and security situation in Algeria. The authorities in the two countries did not think about re-running the train between the two countries until August 2017, but a sudden decision was issued in Algeria days before that canceled the restart of the train.

The return of the train would encourage increased movement of people between the two countries to avoid the exhaustion of the land route and the high cost of air travel tickets, especially with the summer holiday, which witnesses a large influx of Algerian tourists towards the Tunisian coastal cities of Ksoussa and Hammamet.

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