Thursday March 28th, 2024
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No Murders by the Nile on These Seven New Luxurious Sleeper Trains

Earlier this week, Egypt and Spain's Talgo signed a contract to provide seven sleeper trains, totalling 126 railcars.

Scene Traveller

No Murders by the Nile on These Seven New Luxurious Sleeper Trains

If you’ve been unable to emotionally mend the damage left by Agatha Christie’s ‘Murder On The Orient Express’ (in tandem with the 2017 film starring Johnny Depp), and your nights are plagued with captured images of Judy Dench fur-coated, perfeclty coiffed and aurous, then perhaps boarding a similarly classy sleeper train is the precise fantasy you need to enrain.

For Egyptians looking to live out these railroad daydreams, they’ll be glad to learn that the Egyptian National Railways has signed a contract with Spanish train manufacturers Talgo, whereupon they will provide seven luxurious sleeper trains to operate across the country over the next 15 years. Totaling 126 railcars, each of the trains will be made up of ten second-class passenger railcars, five first-class passenger railcars, two dining cars, and a power vehicle.

Out of a total of 1,000 railway cars that are intended to be domestically produced, the first stage in making this dream come to fruition is the production of 500 different railway passenger cars; including 100 air-conditioned first-class cars, 200 air-conditioned second-class cars, and 200 advanced third-class vehicles.

This initiative signifies the first step toward Egypt's goal of becoming one of the world's leading industrial nations, but perhaps more importantly, it marks the first step towards those idyllic cross-country trips from Cairo to perhaps Luxor or Aswan, with the farmland passing by your window as you wonder who amongst your fellow passengers may or may not be a secret murderer.