Trains from Khiva to Samarkand

[smmudge]

Hi all,

I am planning a trip hopefully for next year and have incorporated a train journey from Khiva to Samarkand. I understand there is a new station in Khiva itself and there is no need to get from Khiva to Urgench first. However, I have seen conflicting reports of both what time trains leave and on what days... ideally, I am looking for a train that leaves in the morning (08:43 was mentioned somewhere), change in Bukhara and then on to Samarkand. This is not listed on the Uzbek train website which only indicates one train a day leaving in the afternoon arriving at 02:30 something. So, my questions would be:

1. Is there a morning departure that arrives early evening into Samarkand (with or without changing trains)?
2. If yes, does it go every day of the week (I specifically want a Thursday)?
3. If the answer to question 1 is no, does the overnight train go on a Thursday?

I am hoping for September 2021 and appreciate that the timetable may change between now and then but an indication of the possibilities would be good.

Thanks in advance.

Steve

[Jealgu]

https://www.seat61.com/Uzbekistan.htm

Seat61 indicates there is a daytrain in to Bukhara three days a week. Perhaps younseqrched for a day it does not run? Another possibilities is that due to covid/lack of tourists it does not run curtently. I am, however, not up to date what the covid situation is in Uzbekistan. It is also possible thatbseat61 is not up to date. Especially for countries outside Europe it isn't always.

[Milad]

The current online schedule displays no train running to/from Khiva but the night train from Khiva to Tashkent, which stops in Samarkand in the middle of the night. A day train from Khiva to Bukhara was certainly introduced in 2019, but does not seem to run at the moment. My guess is that the train was cancelled due to low demand because of the pandemic, but I do not know for sure. It will probably be reintroduced when demand increases again. Will this happen by September? No idea.

@Jealgu: outside Europe, Seat61 is not up to date at all since the pandemic broke out (which I fully understand, it's an one-man project and the situation is always changing).

[Lutnistas1969]

Hi,
you can find the schedule very simply on the German Railway page:
https://www.bahn.de/p/view/index.shtml

It's really actually. I used it, when I was in Usbekistan.

Best regards

P.S. It's for example for tomorrow:

Fahrtverlauf vom 19.12.20

Bahnhof / Haltestelle Ankunft Abfahrt Gleis Aktuelles

Zeitpunkt der Anfrage: 14:04 Uhr

Khiva ab 16:44
Urgentsch an 17:14 ab 18:34
Chasarasp an 19:16 ab 19:26
Buchara 1 an 01:05 ab 01:32
Nawoi an 02:35 ab 02:56
Samarkand an 04:56 ab 05:20
Gulistan an 08:11 ab 08:13
Tashkent Iujnyi an 09:29 ab 10:30
Pap an 14:12 ab 14:17
Kokand 1 an 14:50 ab 14:55
Margilan an 16:06 ab 16:11
Andishan 1 an 17:32

Verkehrstage: fährt 19. Dez 2020
Bemerkungen:

[Milad]

German Railway (DB/bahn.de) is easy to use and good to get an impression, but not always up to date for Central Asia, as they get their data very indirectly: UTI send all their data to RZD, RZD send their data to the European Timetable center (EFZ) and DB show everything EFZ gets on their website. This can lead to errors: Sometimes they mess up time zones, often, it takes a lot of time until timetable changes are reflected, in the meantime, they might show trains that do not run (although this is rare) or not show trains that are actually running (this is very common). For example, if you search for any date in January 2021, bahn.de does not display any train to/from Khiva.

tl;dr: You can use bahn.de to get an impression but should always cross-check data with Uzbek Railways' own website to plan your journey (and yes, I know that their website is awful).

BTW, the train Khiva-Andizhan you posted is scheduled to run once a week, leaving every Saturday. There is also another Khiva-Andizhan train with different times, leaving Khiva 13:44, arriving Bukhara pleasantly at 20:34, although Samarkand is reached only by 00:34, Tashkent South 05:05, Andijan 12:43.

[smmudge]

Many thanks for all the replies - I think at this stage I will need to wait until we are closer to seeing an end to the pandemic induced changes in the timetable and the Uzbek railway website is fully operational again.

[LucasJV]

Hi OP, I was in Khiva in early March 2020 and arrived by nighttrain from Tashkent. I doubt there will be a daytrain connection from Khiva, there wasn't at that time, and for more connections other than the one nighttrain I'd recommend to take the trolleybus (yep really) or sharetaxi to nearby Urgench.

While in Khiva I recommend you use OpenStreetMap instead of Google Maps since I've made lots of contributions while I was there and it's much more comprehensive now.