I had a similar experience in Egypt. I was on an organized tour with tour office and part of the trip is a long overnight train from Aswan to Cairo. The train looked terrible from the outside, very dirty. Insides were horribly cramped, no running water, toilets were unusuable. But the beds were surprisingly comfy and we managed to sleep all the way to Cairo.

Unfortunately, as I later learned, they are very unsafe too over there. Just two weeks after my trip a train crash happened with multiple fatalities, and months after it happened again.