The closure is effective from Sunday at 7am local time until Tuesday evening, the ENR's statement said.

Passenger train movement to and from Aswan station will be suspended with the arriving trips terminating at the preceding stations of Kom Ombo, Drao, Blana, Abu Al-Rish.

The ENR previously carried out development work at the station December 2016 through January 2017.

Egypt’s railway sector – the second-oldest in the world with 9,570km of tracks running across the country and transporting around 500 million passengers annually – needs to be radically upgraded, according to experts.

Recently, the country completed up to 177 projects to develop railway stations. It spent a total of EGP 1.7 billion (nearly $108 million), Egyptian Transport Minister Kamel El-Wazir told the parliament in April.

The country is currently implementing 153 projects to modernise the country's railway system, 27 of which are included in the ministry's budget for the current fiscal year, with a total cost of EGP 132 billion (nearly $8.2 billion), he added.