Tickets and travel
One long-distance train runs each way every day between Talas and Nurzhan, and suburban trains serve the villages of Chu District. Most of our passengers are pensioners, students and traders with heavy baggage.
Tickets
Tickets for train No. 1/2 are sold for cash at the station windows, up to ten days before the journey, and on the day until the train leaves. Seats are numbered. Suburban tickets are bought at the window or from the conductor on the train, without a surcharge at stations that have no window.
Platskart is the open carriage of bunks in bays of six; compartment (kupe) is a closed compartment of four berths. Children under 7 travel free without a seat of their own; children from 7 to 15 pay half. Pensioners pay half on suburban trains on showing their pension book.
Fares
Luggage
On train No. 1/2 each passenger may carry 36 kg of hand luggage free. Heavier bags, sacks and bicycles pay 1 som each and travel in the vestibule or the luggage rack at the conductor's direction. Livestock, fuel and gas cylinders may not be carried on passenger trains.
On the train
The journey takes about seven hours. The conductor sells tea and hires bedding for 3 som; there is no restaurant car, and most passengers bring their own food. Carriages are heated from 15 October to 15 April. The train stops for about twenty minutes at Aulie-Ata Junction while the locomotive runs round.
Travel to Kazakhstan
No international passenger trains have run since 2007. Travellers for Shymkent, Taraz or Almaty cross by road at Chu Gate or the Talas North Terminal (see the Customs Service for what may be taken across).