CAIRO: Egypt s general prosecutor charged 14 railway officials Sunday with gross negligence in last month s train accident that killed 58 people outside of Cairo.

The prosecutor s office said the officials ignored repairing some technical equipment that control train signals. No trial date was set for the officials Sunday.

The crash occurred in August when a passenger train barreling toward a station just north of Cairo collided with a second train. The trains belonged to the country s oldest and most dilapidated third-class train service.

Following the crash in Qalyoub, the authorities fired the head of the state rail authority. The government has said it will allocate $1.5 billion for an overhaul of the antiquated rail system.

Egypt has a poor safety record on its railways and there are several fatal accidents each year, usually blamed on inadequately maintained equipment.

The worst recent disaster took place in February 2002, when a train heading to southern Egypt caught fire, killing 363 people. Agencies