Kyrgyz Railways (KTJ;Kyrgyz:Кыргыз темир жолу) is the national railway developer ofKyrgyzstan.
Kyrgyz Railway operates about 320 km of single track lines (with a total track length of 428 km). After theSoviet Union broke up, Kyrgyz Railways obtained 2,500freight cars, 450passenger cars and 50locomotives from the Soviet railways.[1] However, the 1998 financial crisis drastically reduced spending on the railways.[1]
The current rail network is based on the inheritance from the formerSoviet Union and as such has abroad gauge of1,520 mm (4 ft 11+27⁄32 in).
Freight traffic is now only 13% of its 1990 level, 330 million tkm in 2001, compared to 2,620 million tkm in 1990 and is still falling. Passenger traffic is only about 25% of what it was in 1990. While freight services are profitable, passenger services are losing money, since fares are regulated by the Antimonopoly Regulation Service,[1] and travel is due to long distances and slow railways partly taken over by air travel. Also, the line which once linked Bishkek and Osh became untenable once the complex post-Soviet borders in the Fergana Valley became less permeable in the later 1990s: the 'domestic' route had looped around throughTashkent (Uzbekistan) andKhujand (Tajikistan) crossing newly internationalized frontiers nine times.
In 2008 it was announced that work will commence on theelectrification of the line which connects the capitalBishkek with theKazakhstan railway network.[2] As of 2021,[update] work has not begun yet.
TheChina–Kyrgyzstan–Uzbekistan railway, which started construction in 2025, aims to build 260 km of new track in Kyrgyzstan, connecting it to bothKashgar,China andAndijan,Uzbekistan.
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