The invisible trains: a 3rd-Class trip on Egypt’s railways
In Egypt, trains offer a unique vantage point on the country, exposing two starkly different realities that exist side by side but never intersect.
On one side, you have the "Express" trains—fast, comfortable, and mostly reserved for foreign tourists travelling through the Nile Valley to visit Egypt’s iconic landmarks, the polished image the country proudly puts on display.
On the other, there are the local trains—slow, overcrowded, and in disrepair. These trains run without air conditioning, their windows shattered, connecting remote provinces that you never see in travel brochures.
Yet, most of Egypt's 860,000 daily passengers ride these trains every day: workers, students and the elderly who endure gruelling journeys from remote villages to reach schools, markets or hospitals. The country's ambitious rail projects - such as the $4.5 billion high-speed line dubbed "The New Suez Canal on Rails", set to link the Red Sea to Alexandria - are certainly not built for them.
For this feature, I travelled on third-class local trains - often off-limits to tourists - to document the silent but undeniable segregation of Egyptian railways: travelers who can afford it ride in air-conditioned comfort, while most low-income residents are left with crumbling antiques.
