Trains in Uzbekistan: how to travel between cities independently

The Afrosiyob departs Tashkent at 08:00 and arrives in Samarkand at 10:08. Two hours and eight minutes to cover 344 kilometres across the Uzbek desert, with slightly reclined seats, individual screens, silent air conditioning and a coffee service that arrives punctually at nine. The economy class ticket costs around fifteen dollars. It is, objectively, one of the best forms of transport available anywhere in Asia.

That Uzbekistan has a functional, punctual and affordable high-speed train is not an accident: it is the result of infrastructure modernisation begun in the 1990s that has made the country’s rail system the most developed in Central Asia. For the independent traveller, this fundamentally changes the logic of planning a journey.

The Afrosiyob: Tashkent, Samarkand, Bukhara

The Afrosiyob high-speed service has operated since 2011, connecting the three main cities on Uzbekistan’s central axis. The Tashkent-Samarkand journey takes two hours ten minutes. The Tashkent-Bukhara run, stopping in Samarkand, takes just under three hours. In both cases the top speed exceeds 250 km/h on the flat desert sections.

There are two classes: Business (more spacious, leather seats, meal included, around $35) and Economy (perfectly comfortable for the journey, around $15-20). The carriages are clean, punctuality is high, and the online booking system — though it does not always accept foreign cards reliably — allows advance purchase. If the website fails, any local travel agency handles bookings for a small commission.

Advance booking genuinely matters in high season: in May and September, trains between Tashkent and Samarkand fill up four or five days ahead. Arriving at the ticket window the day before may mean no seats available on the Afrosiyob and having to fall back on slower options.

The Sharq and conventional trains

For those who do not need maximum speed or want to save a little more, the Sharq is the alternative: a conventional fast train covering the same axis in three to four hours at slightly lower prices. The carriages are less modern than the Afrosiyob’s but perfectly acceptable, and they have the advantage of serving some intermediate destinations the high-speed train does not stop at.

Conventional trains also cover routes the Afrosiyob does not reach: there are regular services between Samarkand and Bukhara, between Tashkent and Andijan in the Fergana Valley, and connections south to cities like Karshi and Termez. These routes are slower and the carriages older, but they are entirely functional and offer a travel experience closer to what Central Asian rail travel actually is.

The overnight train to Khiva

Getting to Khiva — the walled city of Khorezm in Uzbekistan’s far northwest — has no direct high-speed option. The rail choice is the overnight train from Tashkent to Urgench, around twelve hours, from where a thirty-minute taxi covers the remaining distance to the walls of Ichan Kala.

The overnight train deserves specific mention because it represents a radically different experience from the Afrosiyob. Kupé class carriages — four-berth compartments with a sliding door — cost between fifteen and twenty-five dollars and are perfectly serviceable for a night. Platzkart — open fifty-four-berth carriages — is cheaper and livelier: passengers share space, food and conversation across a language barrier that chai and gestures bridge with surprising ease.

Leaving Tashkent in the evening and waking in the Khorezm plains as the sun rises over an absolutely flat horizon is one of those rail experiences that stays with you. Central Uzbekistan’s landscape — saxaul desert, cotton fields, dead-straight irrigation canals — has an aridity that the Afrosiyob’s speed does not allow you to see.

Buying tickets and finding the stations

The uzbekrailways.uz website works but can be confusing for those who don’t read Russian or Uzbek, and does not consistently accept foreign credit cards. The options are: try it directly online, use a local travel agency (the commission is usually one or two dollars per ticket) or go to the station ticket window with enough time ahead.

The main stations deserve a practical note. Tashkent has two principal stations: the central station (Toshkent vokzali) for Afrosiyob trains and services south and east, and the northern station (Toshkent Shimoliy) for some Fergana Valley trains. Checking which station your train departs from before heading out is essential. Samarkand station has left-luggage storage and is about six kilometres from the centre, easily covered by taxi for under a dollar. Bukhara’s station is somewhat further from the historic medina.

Why the train changes the logic of the journey

The most common mistake first-time visitors to Uzbekistan make is organising the itinerary as if transport were the limiting factor. With the Afrosiyob, it is not. Tashkent to Samarkand is two hours, which means you can spend a full day in Samarkand and sleep in Tashkent that same evening — though it is not the most recommended approach, since the city rewards more time — or move between cities with a lightness that in most Central Asian countries would be unthinkable.

What the train does not solve is access to destinations off the main axis: Khiva requires the overnight service plus a taxi, the Fergana Valley has connections but the times are long, and the south (Termez, Shakhrisabz) needs specific planning. But for the classic circuit — Tashkent, Samarkand, Bukhara, Khiva — the combination of the Afrosiyob and the overnight to Urgench covers almost everything with a surprising efficiency for the region.

The complete Far Guides Uzbekistan guide includes detailed Silk Road routes, interactive maps and all the practical information you need to plan your independent trip.