Rail transport in Turkmenistan


Turkmenistan has of railways. The railway operator is the state owned company Türkmendemirýollary. The company belongs to the Ministry of Railways of Turkmenistan.

National and International railways system

Turkmenistan had of rail line, mostly close to the northern and southern borders. The Tejen–Serakhs–Mashhad railway, built in 1996 by Turkmenistan and Iran, links Central Asian, Russian, and European rail systems with South Asia and the Persian Gulf. In February 2006, the final construction phase began on the Trans-Karakum Railway, a direct link between Ashgabat and Daşoguz that halves travel time between the southern and northern parts of the country.
Bereket Railway Station in former Kazandjik is an important crossroad of the Trans-Caspian railway and North-South Transnational Railway Corridor.
The Türkmenabat-Ashgabat-Bereket-Türkmenbaşy route is partly double-tracked; the rest of the network is single-track. There is no electrification.
The Kazakhstan-Turkmenistan-Iran railway link is a part of the North-South Transnational Corridor and is a long single-tracked railway line connecting Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan with Iran and the Persian Gulf. It links Uzen in Kazakhstan with Bereket - Etrek in Turkmenistan and end at Gorgan in Iran's Golestan province. In Iran, the railway will be linked to national network making its way to the ports of the Persian Gulf.
The project is estimated to cost $620m which is being jointly funded by the governments of Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan Iran and Asian Development Bank. The railway link has been inaugurated in May 2013.
Bereket Railway Station in is strategically important railways intersection on the Trans-Caspian Railway. The city has a large locomotive repair depot and a modern station.

Links to Afghanistan

In 1960, the USSR built a railway across the Afghan border to Towraghondi although services have been very limited; it was restored in 2007. In 2013, work began on a second link, from Atamyrat via Imamnazar to Aqina in Andkhoy District. This link was opened in November 2016. It is expected to be extended 38 km to Andkhoy in the near future, and eventually to become part of a railway corridor through northern Afghanistan, linking it all the way via Sherkhan Bandar, Mazar-i-Sharif and Kunduz to Tajikistan.

Rolling stock

In 2013, 154 passenger coaches were ordered from CSR; CSR has previously supplied locomotives.