Buying train tickets in Uzbekistan

[Leona]

I understand the error message as "Error! In one ticket, there is an incorrect selection of document (type?) not matching the personal details".
Is it possible that you selected your document type as anything but "International passport"? Probably, all other types of documents are supposed for Uzbek (or CIS/FSU) citizens only.

Thank you! I did have a foreign passport selected, but there was definitely a problem there - the system wouldn't allow me to type in any letters, only numbers, so of course it wasn't a correct ID number without the two letters. But this morning I noticed that there are actually two foreign passport options on the list, first one with (RF) which is probably what I clicked yesterday, because I chose the other one today and it worked.
However, the payment issue was still there so didn't get anything booked.

[Milad]

RF means Russian Federation, so I'm quite certain that that was the issue. Annoying that they still didn't fix the payment issue though.

[sofizmat]

Yes, but this script will not check anything if the traveler selects "international passport" as their ID document.

Apparently it will - for me for instance it was not accepting letters in the number of the document. PL pass does have them.

[Leona]

RF means Russian Federation, so I'm quite certain that that was the issue. Annoying that they still didn't fix the payment issue though.

Ah, of course! I didn't even think of that yesterday, just noticed the words 'foreign passport' and thought that it must be for me. Clearly not a good idea to try and book anything at night just before going to bed

[Mort]

From many posts all over the web it seemed that the Uzbek Rail Website was not allowing payment by a foreign credit card. Can anyone tell me if this has been resolved? I did hear that Visa was only accepted yet I have yet to run across a post that said someone, say from USA, simply went to the rail website and bought their ticket. Any thoughts, experiences or answers? Thank You in Advance.

[nujood]

I recently (in April 2022) bought train tickets on https://e-ticket.railway.uz/lang-ru/index.html (which is now appearently their "old" website but the new one did not fully work yet) using my VISA (issued in Germany) and it worked fine. But oddly enough, I was charged in British pounds.

Edit: Now that I'm thinking about it - I had some troubles getting to the payment site at first. I'm not sure if in the end, when it worked, my VPN setting my location to Germany was on or not (and therefore showing my real location which was Russia at the time). So conclusion is: If it doesn't work at first, try a VPN to switch your location to e.g. Uzbekistan or Russia.

[oblastdiskomo]

I booked a few train tickets on the website recently and I had no problems paying with my British debit card (which is MasterCard)

[lonelytraveller01]

I tried to book train tickets online in Uzbekistan rail website, and I find it difficult to book. Either it is always error when trying to log in, or when I try to book it on their apps, it always say "bad request"... Has anyone successful booked it through the apps or booked it on their website?

The app also had me to scan the passport data, but when I tried, it didn't work...

Anyone can give me some advice? Thanks a lot in advance!

[sebhoff]

I used https://e-ticket.railway.uz/lang-en/index.html last year, and didn't have any issues at all. Haven't tried recently, though.

Sebastian

[RollingTreeHouse]

If you cannot buy your train tickets from the site of the Uzbek railways directly for whatever reason, you have the following three options:

1. book the tickets in person when you get to Uzbekistan (drawback: tickets may be sold out by the time you get there)
2. get a third-party agency to book the tickets for you (drawback: you will pay a significant commission)
3. book the tickets via the online system of railway operators from other FSU countries such as Belarus, Kazakhstan or Russia (actually any CIS country plus the Baltics)

As of 2022, the Belarusian Railways (https://pass.rw.by/en/) probably offers the most competitive service in booking interface, payment modalities (foreign credit cards work without a hitch even after the 2022 sanctions) and price, sometimes even undercutting the prices of the operating railway companies.

There are two important points you need to consider:

• You should only buy tickets online for trains that support "Electronic Registration" (ЭП), i.e. e-tickets with your passport details.
  If your chosen connection doesn't support that, you would have to get a physical ticket at a counter of the issuing railway company, i.e. the Belarusian, Kazakh, etc. railways. The Uzbek railways won't be able to issue the non-e-ticket, so better be safe and only buy e-tickets that you can print yourself or show on your phone.
  You can check if a train supports e-tickets on the selection screen by looking for the ЭП icon next to the link for the detailed route of the train.
• When booking, be aware that some railway companies convert the timetable to their time zones, but usually the tickets for domestic trains have their departure and arrival times printed in local time (i.e. the time in Uzbekistan), better be safe and check twice before and after booking, best using the the timetable of the Uzbek railways.

Now you may think that people will be confused if you show up with the Belarusian ticket for a train between Tashkent and Samarkand, but rest assured, the train attendants will have you in their passenger lists and will let you board and your seat/berth/bed will be reserved for you.