Egypt Guide
Getting around
By rail
Covering a limited network of routes (from Cairo to Alexandria, the Delta and the Canal Zone, along the coast to Mersa Matrouh and up the Nile Valley to Luxor and Aswan, Cairo to Alexandria), Egypt's trains are best used for long hauls between the major cities, when air-conditioned services offer a comfier alternative to buses and taxis. For shorter journeys, however, trains are slower and less reliable.
Timetables are not available in leaflet or booklet form, but the Egyptian Railways' website ( 
www.egyptrail.gov.eg ) allows you to look up schedules for its air-conditioned services. Schedules for sleeper services are available on the website of the company which operates them, Abela ( www.sleepingtrains.com ).
Between Cairo and Alexandria, and between Cairo and Luxor or Aswan, both relatively fast air-conditioned trains (including sleepers, also called wagons-lits) and snail-like non-air-conditioned local-stop services operate. However, on the Cairo– Luxor/Aswan route, foreigners are only allowed to use four "tourist trains" (one of which is a sleeper), whose compartments are guarded by gun-toting plainclothes cops. Originally this was for protection from "terrorists", but although the danger now seems to have passed, the restriction still applies. You might find yourself needing to circumvent this rule – for example if you got an Egyptian to buy your ticket, or by boarding an ordinary train without a ticket, and buying one from the conductor.
Buying tickets can get complicated at the largest stations, where separate queues eixst for different ticket classes.