A topic that I was very desperate to find back then, I promised myself to write one after my trip. With lots of delays (a year to be exact), my post is finally here in the hopes of helping fellow travelers with booking train tickets with Uzbek Railways. Because you know, sometimes it can get confusing and a fellow traveler's experience could help! So, if you're planning to move around Uzbekistan by train, and planning to book your tickets, or maybe you encountered an error while booking yours, look no further and check this step-by-step guide!
Uzbekistan Railways
First, Uzbekistan Railways, or Uzbek Railways (for short), is the only railway operator in Uzbekistan. This means that all trains and routes around Uzbekistan are operated by Uzbekistan Railways. I will not go into any more detail about how many trains and routes they have, as that is not the point of this post. Instead, I will show you what to expect before, during, and after you book your train tickets with Uzbek Railways.
Buying Train Tickets—Online or at the Train Station?
In modern times like now, booking online is the norm. However, there are still a few services that are not bookable online. Or even if they are, the user experience is not the best.
This brought me to a decision to skip booking my train tickets with Uzbek Railways online. Back then, I didn't have the patience and the capacity to focus on it before the trip. I told myself that I would buy the tickets at the train station. And this has been a practice of mine because I know it would be easy to get a ticket since I travel solo and I don't really make a fuss about what kind of tickets I end up buying. In short, I'm quite flexible.
I've done this three times now— tickets from Tbilisi to Yerevan, Almaty to Astana, and Moscow to Saint Petersburg. So far, I only failed once, in Almaty. I was told that there were no tickets left for the whole month at all. Not a single ticket, for the whole month. Okay, I am NOT THAT FLEXIBLE.
Uzbekistan's Train Demand
The demand for train tickets is no joke that even locals are struggling to secure train tickets for their regular travels, especially on the high-speed train Afrosiyob. This was on the news early this year but unfortunately, I couldn't find the source anymore.
During my trip (September 2023), I also witnessed the highs and lows of this demand through my experience and from fellow travelers. A South Korean traveler I met in Tashkent told me that she was forced to buy flight tickets within Uzbekistan because she couldn't find train tickets online for her travel dates at all.
In Samarkand, I met another South Korean traveler who missed her train and couldn't buy any tickets to go to Samarkand from Tashkent on the same day. In the end, she took a taxi all the way to Samarkand for $200! I still remember her angelic face, sweating and exhausted after all that trouble.
At the same time, I met a Filipina in Samarkand who was lucky to buy a ticket to Tashkent directly at the train station one day prior to her trip. She mentioned that she was able to buy the tickets easily. This goes to show that while the tickets are always subject to availability, the surge in demand makes this availability more unpredictable. Hence, we highly suggest booking online and in advance. And please, avoid buying from ticket scalpers!
Booking Train Tickets with Uzbek Railways
Okay, enough of my blabbering, because at the end of the day, I was forced to book my tickets online because I didn't have enough time to buy them from the train station. With the help of Safarov hostel's receptionist (sorry I forgot his name), including his kindness in letting me use his bank card, I'm paying his kindness forward! Now let's go to the website -> Uzbekistan Railways Official Website!
The overall booking process looks like this:
- Select your journey details (Route, Date, Train)
- Register an Account or Log In via Social Networks (Google, Facebook, Telegram)
- Select Carriage and Seat
- Enter Passenger Information
- Order Confirmation
- Payment
As you may have noticed from the time stamps of my screenshots, there's quite a delay even though all of them are just the succeeding steps. This is because Uzbek Railways' website needs a higher bandwidth and both my cellular data and the hostel's Wi-Fi (in Uzbekistan) wouldn't cooperate. Thus, I kept losing my seat and connection and sometimes had to do it all over again.
During the payment stage, I first tried to pay with my UAE credit card and I needed an OTP. The OTP is being sent as SMS on my UAE number and because of the poor reception again, it just didn't work so I had to ask the hostel's receptionist's help with his bank card to pay for my tickets.
It could be a rare case but consider these factors when booking your tickets to secure your seats smoothly.
Train Ticket Costs:
As for the tickets, there are a lot of factors that would affect the pricing. Of course, as a mere traveler, I do not have the master copy of the overall pricing lol. So what I'll share below are the final costs of the tickets that I was able to purchase during my travel (September 2023).
- Sharq Train from Tashkent to Samarkand - the train ticket cost was UZS89,590.00 which is equivalent to $7.2
- Sleeper Train from Samarkand to Tashkent - the train ticket cost was UZS142,750.00 which is equivalent to $11
Recap:
While that explains the overall booking process, let's do a recap on all the important points about booking your train tickets with Uzbek Railways.
- Train Tickets can be bought directly at the train station or through the Uzbek Railways website.
- There is a huge demand for train travel around Uzbekistan especially on the high-speed train Afrosiyob.
- Uzbek Railways' website requires a good Internet connection for a smooth booking process.
- Train ticket cost varies on several factors such as travel date or season, type of train, seat class, and so on.
While it is actually a straightforward process and somehow may look like common sense to others, there are few people (like me) who appreciate guides and visuals from other fellow travelers, especially when based on their personal experience.
That desire led me to write this post even though I hesitated, for a year. I hope that there's a thing or two you can take away from this post. And if you're interested in reading about my train experiences around Uzbekistan, here you go and take it away!
