Dining cars/restaurant coaches on trains

[Wesley]

Hello all,

I thought it might be a good idea to collect reports on the existence (and why not, quality) of restaurant coaches (or "dining cars" if you prefer the American term ) on the various trains in Central Asia in a single thread. This would make planning easier, because people would know whether to buy food before boarding or not.

I, for one, would be particularly interested in trains 54 (Tashkent - Kungrad v.v.) and 58 (Shovot - Tashkent v.v.) at the moment, so any reports on those would be welcome!

Wesley

[Milad]

My experience with dining cars on Uzbek slow trains:

There should be a dining car on every Uzbek long-distance train (at least I have never been on one without a dining car, though I know no easy way to check online if there certainly is one on your journey). Usually, there is only one dish available, when I was there, I always got laghman, which was quite tasty. Cost was around $3. To drink, they usually have water, some kind of juice, and sometimes there is beer ($1). The air conditioning was always working and quite strong in the dining car, also on trains, where the a/c in my kupe or plazkart car was bad or did not exist.

One more dining car experience: The food on Kazakh fast (Talgo) trains is okay, but nothing special and somewhat overpriced by local standards (but still cheap compared to dining cars in e.g. Western Europe or the US). Nevertheless, the dining car of these trains is often crowded, so come early to get a seat.

[Wesley]

Thanks! Of course, I will contribute my own experiences in due time as well.

[Wesley]

So, first experience on my side:

Train 054Ф(F) Tashkent South - Kungrad

There was a choice of three dishes: chicken, beef and soup (laghman of course). Furthermore, the waiter/chef really wanted to sell us his salad, but being a bit wary of uncooked vegetables at the beginning of our trip, we gave that a pass. Instead, we - 2 persons - both had the laghman, which was quite good, and the chicken, which somehow had the exact same colour as lobster but was quite tender. No knives, napkins or tablecloth were provided. With 100gr of vodka, a beer and a litre of coke, the bill came up at 145,000 som.