This line opened in 1987 with length 44 km from Helwan station to New El-Marg station and inaugurated on 3 phases:
- The first phase: Helwan /Ramses, inaugurated in 1987 with length 29km
- The second phase: Ramses/ El-Marg, inaugurated in 1989 with length 14km
- The third phase: El-marg/ New El-Marg, inaugurated in 1999 with length 1.3km
- Helwan university station was inaugurated in 2002
• There are 35 stations in line 1( 30 superficial stations and 5 tunneled stations)
• It covers the most high crowded stations and important squares such as Al-shuhdaa station (Ramses squ.), Oraby , Nasser(Ales’aaf station), Sadad (tahrir), saad zaghlul-helwan university ,Dar El-salam , Al-sayeda Zeinab , Ezbet El-Nakhl , El-marg , New El-marg
• It connects with line 2 in Al-shuhdaa and Anwar Elsadat stations
• It connects with line 3 in Gamal Abd Elnasser station( under construction)
• There are 2 cars in middle of the train for women only, the second car men can use only after 9 pm. Women can use all cars.
• The number of trains was raised with 20 air-conditioned trains to cope with increasing of the passengers

Operation:
• Daily operation starts from 5:00 am to 12:.00 midnight
• Last train time in line 1:
From Helwan station at 11:10 pm
From New El-Marg station at 11:30 pm.
Last train from line 1 meets last train from line 2 at 12:00 midnight in Anwar El Sadat station.
• Trip from Helwan to New El-Marg and vice versa is 79 minutes with headway 3.5 minutes all the day
• Trains operation is worked according to operating schedules and intensify of transportation in regular days ,weekends and fests and occasions with average 480 trip / daily
• Fleet of trains consists of 58 trains with speed 80km/h. the train itself consists of 3 units with a design capacity not less than 2583 passenger / train

Maintenance:
Tura El-Baled Workshop was inaugurated to do maintenance works for the fleet of trains in line 1 (all kinds of periodic maintenance and repairing) with total area about 15 acres
• Light repairing through every 2 weeks/2 months/6 months/year (ex. Tests Entry and exiting the trains from / to the workshop on 4 test-tracks.
• There are 2 washing machines for trains in Helwan and El-Marg to wash the train periodically.
• There is also specified track for air-conditioned trains (Korean-made) - 20 trains
• Overhaul repairing through 2.5 years and 4.5 years. There are 9 tracks lifting the units to carry out overhaul repairing for train parts and components.
Besides rapid intervention team in the line distributed along the line to solve any faults or malfunctions in order to provide safety operation of trains.