Egyptian Delta Light Railways

The first was a monopoly for the construction and exploitation of narrow-gauge agricultural railways in the western and central Nile delta governorates of El-Behera (Beheira) and Al-Gharbeya (Gharbia) granted to a British company, John Birch, in April 1896.

These rights were transferred in 1897 to the Société Égyptienne des Chemins de Fer Agricoles, which began construction at Baheira, in 1897 and 1898, of the first 25 kilometres of the network.

[2] In 1900, both concessions were bought by a third company, the Egyptian Delta Light Railways, based in London, England.

(Track radius on the eastern network main lines was eventually extended to a minimum of 120 metres.)

[4] The completed railway consisted of a 999 kilometre (620.75 mile) network of lines throughout the Nile delta region, north of Cairo.

[5] The lines were constructed to supplement the 1,435 mm (4 ft 8+1⁄2 in) standard gauge network, and not all lines were connected: there were in fact three separate networks, including the eastern district to the east of the Damietta branch of the Nile (366 km), the Gharbia district, between the two branches of the Nile (389 km), and Beheira district, to the west of the Rosetta branch of the Nile (244 km).

[6] In his authoritative work on Egyptian railways, published in 1932, professor Lionel Wiener maintains that as a result of a downturn in freight traffic caused by a crisis in the cotton industry, as well as competition from vehicular traffic, the Sentinels, which had water-tube boilers as opposed to conventional fire-tube boilers, promised greater efficiency and lower operating costs compared with traditional steam locomotives.

It seems likely the Sentinels, in addition to their efficiency, were purchased because the company needed extra motive power to cope with a surge in passenger traffic.