Luxor Railway Station — Attraction in Luxor City

TLDR: Information boards do not work. Foreigners required to pay 10x the price for a ticket, many men will try to "help" you but will hold your luggage for ransom until you tip them. Expensive snack shops on platforms. Men in all white uniforms are helpful.

Ticket machines don't work, the information boards in the station don't work either, so you have no idea when the trains operate. If you're a tourist, you'll pay 10 times the price of someone who can speak Arabic (literally, I bought a ticket from Luxor to Aswan, an Egyptian would have paid 60egp, about $1.94 USD, and I had to pay $20.00 USD cash or $21.00 using a credit card). They will not let you pay in egyptian pounds even at the equivalent exchange rate for a $21 ticket. They said that if I buy an egyptian ticket, I'll be charged a fine on the train since I'm a foreigner. This was for a "first class ticket", which the train was dirty, worn, and seats were broken.

They give you a hand written carbon copy slip as your ticket instead of one issued by a machine with a qr code.

Many men will approach you and try to lift your luggage up / down stairs / through xray machine, etc. Then they will block you from getting your bags unless you tip them.

The positive: there are small shops selling snacks and drinks on the platforms, but they charge at least 5 times the price to any foreigner. There are men dressed in all white that have epaulettes that are helpful, but don't let anyone else help you (MANY men will offer help).

The best you can do to understand schedules is use the website / app to see when trains run, but foreigners can't purchase tickets online (enr.gov.eg). And trains won't display on the website for the same day, next day, or even day after sometimes. GOOD LUCK AND...

Flee...run away...never try... Tourist = walking ATM The tourist desk, or rather the system, doesn't open until 7:00 a.m., so don't rush. First attempt to buy tickets from Luxor to Aswan and back at the counter, we were at almost €100. From the other reviews I found that locals pay 70 EGP per trip per person, conversion factor 1€=33EGP. When paying he gave the following options: with € cash or Visa, with $ cash or Visa, with EGP was not an option. Why is their own currency not accepted? Anyways, we chose to pay with € by Visa. The device was set for $, the service person pushed us to give him our credit card. After trying to tell him a couple of times that he has to reset the device to make the transaction in € he finally said he can't change the device from $ to € but it wouldn’t matter because it would be the same rate… in the end we were given the option to pay cash with EGP but only on the train. Whilst standing at the tracks, a man in uniform from the tourist police asked for our tickets. We told him we would buy them on the train. He made a phone call and then said okay come with me. We sat down at a table at a coffee place. The seller handed the policeman a blank piece of paper. The policeman asked us: what do you want, first class? At what time? He then made another phone call and then wrote 1600EGP one way. I can tell you that it’s a really strange feeling when you're sitting in a café with the tourist police negotiating train ticket prices. His look revealed that he was trying to read our minds in order to land a big deal. Feeling completely exposed to this kind of arbitrariness we decided to skip the whole trip. This country has so much to offer, but you constantly feel ripped off. Very very very...

OK, as a railway station it does its basic job - trains stop hear and travellers can get on or off. However, why make it so hard on the traveller to obtain the most basic information? Why not put up some simple signs such as "Platform 1: northbound trains", Platform 2: southbound trains"? Why not install some simple electronic displays announcing number and destination of the incoming train? Why not make loudspeaker announcenents keeping passengers informed about their next train? Why not take some of the money earned through the hugely inflated tourist tickets and invest it into making traintravel easier for foreigners? Here are some of my takeaways: a) Find out the number of your train. Many trains pass through and the train leaving at the time written on your ticket will most likely NOT be the ine you have bought a ticket for. b) Listen to the young men working on the platforms. After a few days in Luxor you'll probably not trust anybody Egyptian anymore. But these guys know the trains, the numbers and the delay. c) Engage with the people around you. Let them know which way you're headed and your train number.Somebody will remember you and show you your way to the right car. Also, it's a nice way to spend your time and you'll probably have w lot of that- my train was two...