High-speed rail in Uzbekistan


in Uzbekistan currently consists of 600 km of track and services using Talgo 250 equipment, branded Afrosiyob by operator Uzbekistan Railways, on upgraded conventional lines. All HSR lines have been built using upgraded lines on Russian gauge. Other regional railways exist.
The country currently has two interoperated lines:
By 2018, the high speed rail was operating beyond capacity, and tickets had to be booked months in advance. To combat this issue, the railway awarded a $62 million contract to Talgo to purchase an additional two 250 km/h tilting trains due to enter service in 2021, to join the other four currently in service; the new contract also requests extra coaches to expand the current nine-car trains to 11 cars each.
Services from Tashkent to Almaty, Kazakhstan have been steadily improving from the Soviet era 30 hours to 16.5 hours as of 2017. There is also a 1.5 hour customs stop at the border. The service uses Tulpar-Talgo equipment of joined Uzbek-Kazakh rail cars. Similarly, the route from Almaty to the Chinese HSR rail head at Urumqi has been upgraded to 8 hours, qualifying as a higher-speed rail link. Chinese may be looking to develop the entire Urumqi and Tashkent segment into a full speed HSR line due to Belt and Road, but as of 2017 this is far from certain. There is also a track gauge difference that effectively prevents high speed usage of current Uzbek HSR by China.