If you cannot buy your train tickets from the site of the Uzbek railways directly for whatever reason, you have the following three options:
- book the tickets in person when you get to Uzbekistan (drawback: tickets may be sold out by the time you get there)
- get a third-party agency to book the tickets for you (drawback: you will pay a significant commission)
- 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.